Latest Iqaluit dump fire smaller and cleaner than 2014 'dumpcano,' city says

This week's fire at part of the Iqaluit dump wasmuch cleaner and smaller than the2014 "dumpcano"because of lessons learned from that experience, according to the city.

"This is a much smaller deal," said Romeyn Stevenson, Iqaluit's deputy mayor.

"It's our separated wood pile making it much cleaner," he said, adding,"the last fire was a toxic fire."

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But Stevenson says the city still has a long ways to go when it comes to waste management.

The fire began Monday evening in the dump's "staging area" where wood is now accumulating, and not metal, as the CBC earlier reported. It grew to about three-by-three metres.

Crews worked throughout the night to extinguish the fire around2 p.m. on Tuesday.

"The really good thing is that we ended up with a pile of wood that lit on fire that wasn't anywhere near any of the other dangerous things to lighton fire, like the tire pile, or the garbage pile itself," said Stevenson.

Stevenson said the city has learned many lessons from the 2014 dump fire.

"The cover and the treatment of the actual garbage that we'relandfillingis done in a much safer, much better way," he said. "We learned from the previous dump fire how to cover the garbage so there's very little chance of it combusting."

Despite these improvements,Iqaluitstill has a garbage disposal problem.

"We need to change our entire waste management practices," said Stevenson.

'Falling behind'

Plans are underway to clear out thetemporary dump site in the fall, but at the moment, but with more sealift crates arriving shortly, the piles of discarded wood are expected to grow.

"Right now we're falling behind. There's so much wood that gets brought into this community in sealift crates and in construction by-product that we literally can't burn all the wood that we want to burn," said Stevenson.

He says it's time for the community to work together on solutions.

"Piling it up at the curb of your yard or dragging it off to the dump is adding to the problem, so we need to come up with group solutions."

Illegal dumping a problem

The city is investigating the cause of the fire.

"Things don't catch on fire on their own necessarily, something had to set it on fire," said Stevenson.

Stevenson said there have been several incidents with people accessing the dump without permission.

"I don't know if that caused the fire in this case but I do know that over the last couple of months we've fined more than one organization who were illegally dumping at the site," said Stevenson.

The fire isn't expectedto result in a significant expense.

The main cost will be from theovertime of the fire crew who battled the fire all night.