Crews make progress battling fire in massive mountain of construction debris

KENTVILLE, N.S. – The fire chief of a small Nova Scotia town says crews who have been battling a blaze inside a massive pile of construction debris for five days have been overwhelmed by the support from members of the community, who have delivered enough food to the station to fill more than eight banquet tables.

Ryan MacEachern, chief of the Kentville Volunteer Fire Department, said finding enough food to feed the dozens of weary crew members on Good Friday was proving difficult, so the department asked the public for food donations on Facebook.

MacEachern said within two hours, the station was filled with everything from casseroles and Chinese food to fruit, sandwiches, cookies and water.

“It’s just been unreal. When the public hears we need something, it doesn’t take long and they’ll chip in and that’s a pretty good feeling,” said MacEachern in a phone interview from the department on Saturday.

“There are people handing out muffins at the scene from their car windows. It just gives you that warm feeling that you’ve got the support you need when you need it.”

MacEachern said crews were entering the final stages of extinguishing the fire on Saturday.

He said the towering mound of construction debris that stands several storeys high was being doused with water and excavators were slowly moving the debris into separate piles.

Bulldozers will flatten out the doused debris — which will end up standing about six metres high and covering the space of two arenas — and it will be covered with sand, said MacEachern.

MacEachern said he expected to pull out firefighting equipment by dusk Saturday and move to a monitoring stage.

MacEachern, who has been fire chief for about three years and a firefighter for 22 years, said it’s one of the longest burning fires he’s dealt with.

“It’s been the biggest tap of resources that I’ve had to deal with personally,” he said.

Roughly 13 fire departments from the surrounding area have been helping to extinguish the blaze since it ignited inside the 90 metre-high pile at the site owned by South Mountain Construction and Debris Recycling Ltd. on Tuesday.

MacEachern said the pile of debris wasn’t supposed to get that large and there was also more sorting that should have been done. He said those factors likely contributed to the spontaneous combustion that sparked the fire.

The garbage contains plastic debris, which is fouling the air and residents near the North River Road site have been told to keep their windows closed.

— By Aly Thomson in Halifax.