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Trash bin fires more common in winter

Firefighters find smoldering Dumpster at 30th Street and Main

Durango Fire Protection District responded to a trash bin fire Wednesday near 30th Street and Main Avenue.

No one was hurt, and no structures were threatened.

Karola Hanks, fire marshal with DFPD, said when crews arrived about 9:10 a.m., the “Dumpster was smoldering, and we just finished the extinguishment of it.”

She said it’s “not an uncommon time of year for us to get Dumpster fires. People have a tendency to take their ashes and put them in the Dumpster, then we end up responding to a Dumpster fire.”

In general, Hanks said trash bin fires are not a “large issue,” except that DFPD is forced to send out crews that might be needed elsewhere for more grave emergencies.

Hanks said the only time trash fires cause real concern is when they are adjacent to buildings, which often is the case downtown.

“That’s the other place we tend to see Dumpster fires, when restaurants use charcoal, wood, solid fuels in cooking. Then they’ll dispose of the ashes and put them in the dumpster, as many members of the public would. Then we get a Dumpster fire.”

She said DFPD had worked diligently with local restaurants to prevent this from happening. “Still, they could be doing better.”

She said occasionally, DFPD encounters a trash fire that someone sets deliberately.

cmcallister@durangoherald.com



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