EXTINGUISHING THE DELTA SHAKE AND SHINGLE LANDFILL FIRE 

Initial Fire Response.
Although emergence of steam and smoke had been noted from the landfill for over several weeks, no one realized that the landfill was on fire until flames broke through the surface on Monday, November 8th around midnight, when the landfill owner initiated a 9-1-1 emergency call. The Delta Fire Department responded with several pumper trucks. The surface fire was brought under control over the next 24 hours; however, on Wednesday, November 11th the Delta Fire Chief realized that the fire was much more involved when a 50 x 50 m sinkhole dropped approximately 3 m on the crest of the horseshoe and flames again erupted on the steep landfill face.

Concerned that the fire would spread, Delta Shake and Shingle commenced excavation of 6 m deep trenches around the burning areas. The trenches were completed on Sunday November 14th, but it quickly became apparent that these would not be effective in stopping the fire because they penetrated less than one half of the fill thickness.

Sperling Hansen Associates (SHA), became involved in the project on Friday, November 12th, when Delta Shake and Shingle was requested to retain a specialist consultant familiar with fighting landfill fires to develop an extinguishment plan. The extinguishment plan recommended by SHA involved establishing perimeter fire guards down to solid soil around the horseshoe, excavating and extinguishing all burning material from the horseshoe and conducting thorough geotechnical monitoring to ensure that surrounding utilities would not be damaged by the firefight. A previous slope failure of the landfill had displaced the gas pipeline by more than 3 m and resulted in damages of several million dollars.        

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