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                                                        UNDERSTANDING AND CONTROLLING LANDFILL FIRES

Conclusions and Lessons Learned:

Based on the experience developed during the extinguishment of landfill fires discussed in this paper a number of conclusions can be reached with respect to prevention of fires in demolition and MSW materials and effective fire control methods:

Fire Prevention:

-    intermediate cover material must be installed on all exposed slopes with particular attention given to windward slopes;

-    fill plans incorporating vertical fire breaks need to be developed for demolition areas to limit the potential extent of any fires; and

-    due to their composition and porosity wood-waste demolition materials pose an extreme fire risk and must be handled with equal or more caution than municipal solid waste

 

Fire Fighting and Monitoring:

 

-    sufficient equipment resources and personnel must be available to immediately respond to any landfill fire;

-    the toxicity of smoke and combustion gases should be assessed prior to commencing a fire fight.  Proper respiratory protection, possibly involving SCBA may be required;

-   the approach of cooling down an underground fire with large volumes of water proved effective at Vancouver Landfill and is expected to work equally well on other demolition material fires provided the hot zone is shallow (<10 m);

-  cutting off the oxygen supply to the burn zone is an effective way to fight fire in demolition materials.  This approach has effectively extinguished the Campbell Mountain Landfill fire and is currently being used to control a large DLC fire at Waste Management’s Burnsville Landfill in Minnesota;

-  excavation and overhaul is a reliable but time consuming and expensive method of fire extinguishment.  This method should be considered for critical situations where the landfill fire poses a major threat to nearby communities and/or infrastructure;

-  an effective temperature monitoring program is essential in determining the extent of an underground fire and to monitor progress in fighting the fire;

-    subsurface carbon monoxide levels in conjunction with methane and oxygen levels provide critical data in determining the extent of a fire as well as evaluating the potential for a fire to develop; and

-   to reduce the risk of spontaneous combustion, operators should strive to establish anaerobic conditions within demolition landfills whereby oxygen is totally excluded, with methane and carbon dioxide being the predominant gases.

Papers   IntroductionCharacterizing a FireExtinguishment MethodsMonitoringConclusions and Lessons Learned   End of Article