The Glenmore Landfill in Kelowna.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/City of Kelowna

About eight times a year, small fires will spark to life in the Okanagan’s largest dump, the Glenmore landfill in Kelowna.

Usually they’re easily put out by crews on site.

But over the past two weeks, two sizeable after-hours fires forced firefighters to rush to the landfill and city crews to jump into bulldozers to stir things up enough that the fires could be fully extinguished.

“I don’t know that we will find a cause because these ones are big enough,” Scott Hoekstra, the City of Kelowna’s solid waste supervisor, told iNFOnews.ca. “It’s hard to isolate."

The first of the recent fires, on July 11, burned a 50 foot by 50 foot space, with bulldozers pushing material around so it could be extinguished by the fire department.

READ MORE: Overnight fire at Kelowna landfill extinguished

A second fire, on July 19, burned a 50 to 75-foot area.

Moving all that material around makes it impossible to pin down the cause of the fire.

But given the evidence staff has found from smaller spot fires over the years, it’s not from the flammable methane gas the city collects off the site or from heat generated from composting garbage or yard wastes.

“In our experience, car batteries and lithium batteries are the primary sources when we can identify the ignition sources,” Hoekstra said.

“Part of problem is, so many people don’t realize just how common lithium batteries are nowadays. Cell phones, wireless earbuds, computers, rechargeable electronics, e-cigs, vape-pens. A couple of years ago we had a small fire and the source of it was actually an e-cigarette that someone had thrown in that had lithium batteries in it.”

When damaged, the lithium batteries can slowly heat up to the point where they can trigger combustion.

There have also been fires started by car batteries. If a piece of metal connects with the two terminals, sparks can ignite flammable materials.

Staff have picked up propane bottles and even flares from waste containers, Hoekstra said.

The batteries seem to be coming mostly from construction waste bins where cameras and drivers can’t always see them.

“It’s not uncommon to find them in the roll-offs bins that might come off a construction sites,” Hoekstra said. “This could be a labourer at a construction site that has a broken leaf blower and throws it in there and there’s a lithium battery in the leaf blower because it’s a rechargeable one.”

Generally the fires are in fairly new deposits so, since the landfill is layered, they do not burn very deep.

Hoekstra doesn’t know of any deep fire ever at the Glenmore Landfill.

Since the fires tend to be in construction and demolition material they may not be producing toxic smoke but Hoekstra has no data on that issue.

The landfill is monitored to make sure there isn’t excess oxygen, which allows fires to burn.

The dump sites are sealed off so, once the bacteria consume the oxygen they start generating methane gas. That’s collected with most of it going to Fortis but some is burned on site.

Since the deeper piles of garbage are layered with dirt and sealed off, fires are not likely.

READ MORE: Kelowna spends millions to keep development away from garbage dump

The other possible source of fire are the yard waste piles which heat up as they compost.

In the summer, they can be kept damp. It’s in the winter when they have to be carefully watched because the steam can freeze into a layer of ice the allows the inside to heat up enough to combust.

If the temperature gets too high, machinery has to be called in to break the compost up and cool it off.

So, it comes down mostly to batteries triggering fires. They really need to be recycled.

“People should be managing their waste appropriately and do the right thing with it,” Hoekstra said. “As a consumer, you should make a decision on how you’re going to manage this stuff when you buy it. You should be thinking, when you buy it: ‘How am I going to recycle this material at the end?’”

Call2recycle has a directory of where to drop off batteries.

Productcare Recycling has a directory of where to drop off household hazardous wastes, paint, lights, etc.

The Regional District of Central Okanagan has information on where and how to recycle and even has a Recycle Coach app.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Rob Munro or call 250-808-0143 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

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