WASHINGTON — A fire that started Thursday night at the recycling and disposal center in Fairfax County is under control, and firefighters are now in the “clean-up portion” of their response, an official said Saturday morning.
Ryland Kendrick, battalion chief of Fairfax County Fire and Rescue, said the major fire was out Saturday morning, but they are waiting on equipment to extinguish the fire fully.
“We are awaiting arrival of heavy equipment to move the trash around so that we can disperse it and then extinguish it,” Kendrick said in a video update on Fairfax County Fire and Rescue’s YouTube Channel around 9:30 a.m. Saturday. “Right now, the fire is too deeply seeded to extinguish directly, so we are maintaining control, isolating the environment and, again, awaiting the arrival of heavy equipment from Covanta.”
Three stories of trash caught fire in a building at the Covanta Fairfax Waste to Energy Facility, on Furnace Road in Lorton, a little after 9 p.m. Thursday, officials said.
The fire department said the fire began on the tipping floor of the building, and extended to the holding pit, which was full. It took about 60 firefighters to get the blaze under control, but it’s continuing to smolder, and fire officials said Friday that it would take several days to put out completely.
No injuries have been reported as of Saturday morning, Kendrick said, and there is no immediate safety hazard around the building or to those working to the firefighters and other workers.
It’s also not a health hazard, the fire department said Friday, and the cause of the fire is still under investigation.
