Fire in built environment

Authorities are working to determine the cause of what is being described as the largest fire in the history of the Cooks Sanitary Landfill, after a major blaze broke out at the facility on Friday evening.
The National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), the Ministry of Health, and the St. John’s Fire Service were all mobilized in response to the fire, which began smoldering after 6 p.m. and then escalated into a full blaze.
The Junior Minister within the Ministry of Health, Wellness, the Environment and Civil Service Affairs, Senator Michael Joseph, said investigators are working on the assumption that an accelerant or volatile chemical was responsible for igniting the fire.
“We are working on the assumption that the fire was started by someone bringing, either through dumping of their waste, either knowingly or unknowingly, and in which case there was an accelerant, possibly some sort of combustible chemical.
“Again, it could have been out of ignorance, not knowing, and it was dumped, and because it was combustible or it was a volatile substance, it caught fire,” Senator Joseph said.
He explained that the fire broke out in a newly created cell at the landfill, which rules out methane — a gas produced by decomposing garbage — as the cause. Joseph noted that because the cell contains freshly dumped waste, there has been no decomposition to generate methane.
“Whereas in the old cells, where you have the garbage being broken down and one of the by-products being methane, and from time to time we’ve had small outbursts of these methane-produced fires, this is not the case in this cell,” he said.
“It means the only source would have had to be something external from the methane that would have caused it,” Joseph continued.
Security personnel at the facility first observed smoke rising from the cell at approximately 6:30 p.m. and reported the actual fire to management at 7:30 pm. A full emergency management response was activated by 8 pm, drawing in multiple agencies.
Senator Joseph confirmed that sustained overnight efforts brought the fire to approximately 90% contained by 6:37 am Saturday, with continued work pushing containment to 95% through the early hours.
In a media release issued on February 28th, the NSWMA indicated that the site was closed and expressed sincere apologies to surrounding communities for the disruptions, including poor air quality. Residents with respiratory ailments were asked to stay indoors or take precautionary measures.
When Observer Media reached out to Senator Joseph on Sunday for an update, he confirmed that the fire had been fully quenched and that the landfill had been reopened that day.
The NSWMA thanked all government stakeholders and landfill staff who acted swiftly to bring the blaze under control and pledged to minimize hazardous events at the facility going forward.
Reportedly, no injuries have been reported as a result of the inferno.