Fire in wood chip waste pile at Greater Vernon landfill. (Photo credit: RDNO)

By Pete McIntyre

'dirty job'

UPDATE: Crews douse wood chip blaze at Greater Vernon landfill

Jan 9, 2024 | 11:50 AM

UPDATE 4:45 p.m.

A fire in a wood chip pile at the Greater Vernon landfill is now officially out.

BX-Swan Lake Fire Chief Bill Wacey confirmed that with Vernon Matters, saying ten firefighters from his department and Coldstream spent the day working with landfill staff to douse the stubborn blaze that was caused by spontaneous combustion.

“We got to where the main part of the fire was, and got it well spread out and spent all day hosing it down,” Wacey said.

Firefighters thought they had it extinguished Monday, but there was a flare-up Tuesday morning.

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‘Zombie fire’: Crews work to douse wood chip blaze at Greater Vernon landfill

If you see smoke coming from the Greater Vernon landfill, there is no cause for concern.

The fire departments from BX-Swan Lake and Coldstream have been battling a large fire in a wood chip pile that started on Monday and flared up again Tuesday (Jan. 9).

BX-Swan Lake fire chief Bill Wacey said it’s producing a lot of smoke, but it’s not a danger of spreading to other parts of the Regional District of North Okanagan facility on Birnie Road, south of Vernon.

“No, not at all,” Wacey said. We’re at the top of the landfill area so they’ve [RDNO] got some machinery in here and they are trying to pull the pile apart and we’re trying to spray it down.”

The RDNO said the fire is in a relatively isolated location on the upper level of the landfill, which is officially called the Greater Vernon Diversion and Disposal Facility.

Fire in wood chip waste pile at Greater Vernon landfill. (Photo credit: RDNO)

The veteran fire chief suspects it started from spontaneous combustion.

“If you get a lot of this stuff [wood chip waste] — if you get pressure on it with the weight of it over a period of time — sometimes it happens that way. It’s what we call the zombie fires — they sit and burn underground for a long time and then they burst up,” Wacey explained.

Wacey said landfill staff are operating the machinery to tear the pile apart, while each fire department has five members on the site.

Wacey called it “a dirty job” for firefighters with a lot of dust being produced.

He hopes to have the fire out by later Tuesday.

The landfill remains open to the public.

“The Greater Vernon Diversion and Disposal Facility is fully open to all residential and commercial customers except for the asbestos disposal area, which currently has limited access,” Dale Danallanko, manager, environmental services with RDNO, said.