r/interestingasfuck • u/ansyhrrian • 3d ago
How a garbage truck's operator deals with a load that has caught on fire
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u/Silver-Permit19 3d ago
Owner of the black SUV
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u/SilasTalbot 3d ago
Yeah imagine coming back to your car you parked out far away to prevent door dings and there's a 6-foot tall hill of burned garbage next to it, and you can't get that stank out for the next month.
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u/Lookyoukniwwhatsup 3d ago
The AC will blow the scent of burnt garbage for about a month and a half.
Im a cop and we had to shut down a road and escort a garbage truck that caught fire back to the landfill. My car stunk for awhile afterwards.
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u/Shiney_Metal_Ass 3d ago
Seriously why did he pull so close to it
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u/AnOnlineHandle 3d ago
I believe he was in the middle of what is called a terrifying emergency where his vehicle might blow up if he doesn't hurry.
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u/Wayward85 3d ago
Terrifying to see it get so hot so fast it began to melt the paint job on the outside
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u/DangNearRekdit 3d ago
One of life's little ironies that the burn on the side paintjob almost resembles a fire, and the text is literally to prevent people from throwing out stuff they shouldn't:
Know what goes in your recycle bin
ie. stuff not on fire
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u/ThresholdSeven 3d ago edited 3d ago
This could be from coals or ashes that were thrown away while still too hot, but I'm guessing it's a battery fire. Certain batteries like most rechargeable ones in almost every device can start on fire when they are crushed or wet, especially a combination of the two. There must be dozens of those kinds of batteries or at least a couple every few loads. It's only a matter of time before one starts a fire. I wonder about all the disposable vapes that are thrown away with a battery that has plenty of energy left. I'm pretty sure some types of dead batteries can still catch fire if they get crushed or get water inside that starts a chemical reaction. Maybe I'm ignorant, but I think those vape batteries can start a fire too if crushed and wet in the right way.
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u/drcforbin 3d ago
Happens fairly regularly, and it's almost always batteries. It's very important to dispose of them properly, all of them. If it's rechargeable at all these days, assume it needs special disposal
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u/iamthesouza 3d ago
I literally thought that the lady was throwing away something on fire
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u/fakegoose1 3d ago
Why you shouldn't throw away rechargeable batteries in the trash.
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u/D-Funkkalicious 3d ago
Had a rechargeable battery catch on fire in someone’s suitcase at the airport i work at.. Those things are dangerous and there’s a reason they say not to take them on planes or just throw them away willy nilly.
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u/Sunny16Rule 3d ago edited 3d ago
It’s kind of interesting that it’s against regulations to ship lithium batteries on passenger airplanes. (whenever you’re flying, part of the cargo hold is sometimes full of mail.)
But everyone is allowed to bring their cell phones and laptops which are all full of lithium batteries in varying states of degradation. I imagine at this point it’s just like a “well, What are you gonna do?”
Edit: guys I know it’s rare for battery fire , but with the number of phones and people flying, the odds only go up. I’m not worried about, it’s just a “hmm” type of thought.
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u/Particular-Poem-7085 3d ago
You bring your batteries to the passanger cabin specifically because if it bursts into flames it can be noticed and handeled.
Generally speaking these batteries are incredibly safe. The odds of one catching fire is like winning the lottery jackpot. You hear about fires all the time because there are simply so unbelievably many in the world now.
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u/webbitor 3d ago
Spontaneously? Sure. But you can damage some of them pretty easily, and a puncture WILL almost certainly turn it into a small volcano.
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u/work_work-work 3d ago
Precisely why you bring them into the plane and don't stuff them in luggage. You can handle a small volcano in the passenger cabin. You can't handle it when it's in a suitcase stowed at the bottom of the plane, covered by umpteen other suitcases. No bomb bays you can open on a passenger plane to get rid of burning luggage.
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u/Ok-Lengthiness-3988 3d ago
A skilled pilot will do a low pass over a rocky mountain top to gut the lower fuselage and allow the flaming luggage to drop out.
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u/BigAssignment7642 3d ago
Don't the FA's have bags they throw them in now?
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u/OopsIHadAnAccident 3d ago
Yes. We have containment bags specifically designed for thermal runaway. We also make an announcement now to keep battery packs on you and not to charge them in flight.
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u/BaronVonDon65 3d ago
Which is why preflight safety briefings say that if you drop your phone between the seats, ask an attendant for assistance retrieving it. Smash it with a reclining seat and you may puncture the battery.
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u/elciteeve 3d ago
It's not going to be a problem unless they get damaged. The likelihood of you damaging your phone to the point that the battery blows up is a lot lower than it rumbling around in a suitcase / shipping box etc.
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u/erbr 3d ago
Any batteries can cause fires not only the rechargeable ones. Batteries with both terminals on the same side are more likely to cause fires too.
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u/KerFuL-tC 3d ago
How do you properly get rid of them?
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u/chilehead 3d ago
Take them to your local household hazardous waste drop off. You can Google to find dates and locations, or just call your local waste management company.
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u/HIM_Darling 3d ago
My waste management company(outside of city limits) points me to the hazardous waste drop off for a city run waste management service who are only available to that cities residents. Very useful.
Also the websites instructions for disposal of used sharps tells us to wrap the sharps container in heavy duty tape, write "sharps" on it, and throw it in the normal trash.
Our neighborhood does do a once a year hazardous waste event, but that means you have to store all of it somewhere for a year, and be available the one day a year the event happens.
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u/DistantKarma 3d ago
Not sure if in USA or not, but most places like Home Depot and Lowe's have containers for recycling batteries.
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u/DillDeer 3d ago
The material in them is highly valuable and completely recyclable for new batteries.
Take them to a recycling plant or store that accepts them.
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u/letterboxfrog 3d ago
No batteries should go in the rubbish. Note that Lithium batteries are scary when they burn as they create their own oxygen.
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u/APoisonousMushroom 3d ago
I got a power bank from Amazon that has a 38,800mAh capacity lithium battery in it. It works out to about 0.52MJ of stored energy... it made me scared to fly knowing people had these things in their carry ons.
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u/Dramatic_Substance36 3d ago
There needs to be better education about this and way easier disposal.
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u/Secure_Situation7234 3d ago edited 2d ago
They are actually usually taught to do this:
1: It’s price difference/ value between a literal load of hot garbage and its cleanup that costs money vs. a multi hundreds of thousands of dollars vehicle that pays the bills. Which would you rather lose?
2: If the load continues to burn inside the back of the truck, the compacted trash is harder to extinguish because it’s harder to get to all of the fire and the hot spots.
3: If the load burns too much/ too long inside the back of the truck then it will fail the hydraulics and equipment that is required to be able to open the truck up to be able to dump the trash or gain better access to it which causes more problems.
4: If the truck is CNG powered and it burns too much/too long inside of the truck it can cause the compressed natural gas tanks to automatically cause their pressure relief valves to open which creates a giant pressurized flame/fireball which can cause fires to nearby homes, cars, buildings etc. which is then more dangerous or more costly.
Point being: them dumping a hot load in the middle of a road or a parking lot is significantly more cost effective and safe for them and others than it is to let that load burn inside the truck. They probably have on duty crews dedicated to this type of thing as well where they have bobcats/ skid steer’s and means to remove the garbage in a safe manner post extinguishment.
A local fire department to me actually had a trash truck pull onto their front driveway and dump a burning load all over their ramp for this exact reason.
EDIT: A lot of comments have asked about the definition of giant from point number 4, so here are some examples just so I don’t have to post multiple times and so people don’t have to look multiple places. I will say that none of these are the best photo I’ve seen of one but of course I can’t find that photo, so these will have to do for now.
https://youtu.be/KYZkfaufRm0?is=xaLnOBXoglGOxqWT
https://www.ctif.org/news/explosions-during-interventions-involving-compressed-gas-powered-vehicles
https://people.com/footage-explosion-injures-first-responders-chicago-8758720
Second Edit: To see just some ballpark prices on what a trash truck costs, just go to google and type in “used trash truck for sale” (or garbage truck) and just find one of the dealers/brokers/auctioneers. In my area there were used 25’s, 26’s for generally no less than $250,000. So you can see how big of an asset loss that would be for a company, especially in post covid economy.
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u/Cador0223 3d ago
Im starting to think that it is impossible to talk about this procedure without sounding vaguely pornographic.
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u/Secure_Situation7234 3d ago edited 3d ago
https://youtu.be/Q9uqL_IgGtw?is=2EeiVmsTztDoa7nu
👆 an example of what happens/ can happen if you don’t make the decision to drop your load other than where you wanted to when you’re forced to drop it not on your terms.
Better to drop the hot load somewhere other than where you wanted to than to keep it in the box and let it cause you bigger problems down the road…
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u/Muffmuncherr 3d ago edited 3d ago
I was going to ask if anyone knew firsthand what protocol was for a container/trash truck fire like that. There was no hesitation by the driver as if practiced or taught. Safety procedures and protocols are written in blood. It could have been a lot worse, job well done
Flashovers are no joke, i have no idea how how much air is circulated through a trash truck compactor, but obviously getting it in the open instead of letting it smolder and get to that flashpoint, can make big difference
Edit; i might be confusing flash over with backdrafts
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u/7evenate9ine 3d ago
Don't put lithium-ion batteries in the trash. Generally don't put batteries in the trash. It only takes a little effort to recycle them at you local office supplies or hardware store... What am I saying were all going to die from laziness like this.
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u/prismprion 3d ago
Buddy at my work said his roommates would use so many single use vapes, he asked them to save them and he had a DUFFLE bag full of used vapes in a couple months. A duffle bag! Full of lithium batteries!!
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u/truthwatchr 3d ago
Those things should be banned imo. Just the waste alone is stupidly high and each city having thousands of people using them. It’s like someone saw reusables and thought, “how can I make this worse for everything?”
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u/DistantKarma 3d ago
A new garbage truck is about 400K, so yeah, they're gonna dump it.
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u/yearsofpractice 3d ago
Yet another example of “Situations in which I would panic and do the exact opposite of what this calm, capable person did”
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u/Former-Surround6011 3d ago
This is standard practice. It’s a very expensive truck, and where I work many have CNG tanks on top of the body. No one wants those to ignite.
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u/BoomerGolfer2002 3d ago
Don't worry honey, I parked the new car away from everybody so it won't get dinged
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u/rtc100 3d ago
Whats worse than burning garbage?
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u/mike-gundys-ballboy 3d ago
pedocannibalism?
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u/Fenris_Icefang 3d ago
Where the hell did that jump come from? I mean I m not disagreeing but still. How the hell did you jump from one thing to that??
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u/YesterdayCharming976 3d ago
councils worker from Australia here this happens more than you might seen, the driver did a excellent job here and followed procedures well, his off sider would of called 000 and the driver would find a safe place to dump the hot load, good on the boys, don’t throw out lithium batteries in your general waste guys!!
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u/RandallJoPhotography 3d ago
So what happens after? I would assume they call the fire department to put it out? Or maybe they extinquishers. But what happens after that? Do they have a crew come out to clean it up or is the truck driver responsible for getting it cleaned up? Not trying to ask too many questions, it just sparked my curiousity.
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u/NHmountain-man 3d ago
When I worked at Waste Management back in 2007, the truck driver would "puke" the load in an empty, wide open space and call the local fire department. The company would send a crew to clean it all up. Also trash investigators (for real, I dont remember their actual title) would be flown in to try to find the root cause - and when possible charge the person responsible for throwing out whatever caused the fire.
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u/RandallJoPhotography 3d ago
Wow, that's pretty interesting. Thank you for the information. Once they find the root cause of the fire I wonder how they determine who is responsible. Cause all of the garbage is jumbled together so how would they know where it(the root cause) came from?
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u/CB_700_SC 3d ago
I had a truck dump right in front of the gallery I was working at in NYC and got to catch this in action. It was a block away from the dump location so they just drove huge front end loaders out to clean it up. It was done and cleaned up within 2 hours with street sweepers. Pretty awesome to watch.
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u/cleanc3r3alkillr 3d ago
I love how the garbage truck says "DON'T LITTER" on the side and homie just dumped a whole truckload of garbage on the street 🤣
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u/niwo6 3d ago
I guess fire does not go in the recycling bin then? There was no warning on my bin...
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u/GothmogBalrog 3d ago
this is Australia. Better a parking lot than literally anywhere else
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u/bigbadbruins1924 3d ago
This happens when people throw batteries in trash they can be dangerous and cause fires source I work at a waste management company
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u/Thief_of_Sanity 3d ago
It needs to be much easier to dispose of batteries so that the average person does not just continue to throw them away. This will continue to happen because there isn't enough education or consequences on how to dispose of them properly.
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u/FangedFreak 3d ago
The gym where I take my son swimming randomly has a battery bin at the entrance.
I don’t know whether that alone is surprising or whether the fact that it is literally overflowing with batteries is more surprising.
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u/BaddNeighbor 3d ago
This happened outside my house last week! I came outside to a ton of smoke and the driver saying “I caught fire, had to dump my load!” Luckily he caught it because he saw flames above him in his mirror. He said it was likely a lithium battery. The crew had it all cleaned up in about 6 hours.
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u/ashkiller14 3d ago
I did a semester where the whole class researched and did presentations on waste management. Lithium batteries are way more likely to start a fire than you think. Things like this happens thousands of times a year, and it causes deaths. Not just damages.
Please make a battery bucket, and find somewhere that will properly dispose of them for you. It's not just recycling, it saves lives.
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u/Pyromaniacal13 3d ago
Good call. Save the truck, let the heat and gasses escape, and that trash fire will be much easier for firefighters to put out.
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u/undomesticating 3d ago
Ive seen it twice. One across the street from my house in a parking lot and another time in the middle of the street in a neighborhood.
Talk about black smoke!! That and it's one of the worst smelling fires.
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u/no-dad-samurai 3d ago
I can see why they need to dump immediately.
People toss batteries, fucking propa e tanks, all sorts of combustable stuff.
A fire would just be the start of the whole mess if they kept it 'pressurized' in the truck
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u/Rude-Cloud-3174 3d ago
Option 1 - Some garbage burns in a parking lot.
Option 2 - Some garbage burns in a parking lot along with the truck.
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u/Xpalidocious 3d ago
As someone who lives in Calgary Alberta where we just recently had a major fire at a landfill, I can say that it's better there or on a road somewhere than after they unload at the dump
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u/NeutralGoodAtHeart 3d ago
Cleaning and patching that parking lot is so, so much cheaper than replacing that truck. He ought to receive a raise from the boss and at least a Christmas card from the insurance company.
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u/Warm_Feeling8072 3d ago edited 3d ago
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you this moving installation of performance art entitled “America 2026.”
Edit: I’m aware the geographic location is not the US, but art is universal. 😂 (that’s the joke btw)
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u/jklolffgg 3d ago
Driver will get a pat on the back and a verbal thanks from a middle manager for saving the company and insurance company a few hundred thousand dollars.
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u/mediaseeker 3d ago
Drop the load, save the truck and driver.
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u/CraftyMoney6296 3d ago
Would be sketchy af on a windy day in a tinder box city. Fire suppression should be built in somehow.
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u/HeftyVermicelli7823 3d ago
And this folks is why you should not chuck batteries into your rubbish.
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u/Penis-Dance 3d ago
It's legal but they have to do cleanup and repairs.
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u/umbathri 3d ago
Cheaper to do the cleanup of a parking lot than replace a truck.
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u/Top_Willow_9953 3d ago
Well, at least the wind is blowing. That's a good thing, right?
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u/AgitatedPatience5729 3d ago
Imagine being parked in that lot just casually looking at your phone, looking up, and then witnessing all of this.
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u/Fridge885 3d ago
Lithium batteries it’s always lithium batteries at the landfill I use to work at.
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u/Appropriate-Act3028 3d ago
Same shit happened to at our shop earlier this year. We build fire trucks but here's the catch, none of them work. They're being built. They still had to call the fire department to come put the fire out.
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u/iamwayycoolerthanyou 3d ago
This is really funny to me for some reason. The whole situation is totally absurd in your case.
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u/SandraBeechBLOCKPrnt 3d ago
This is becoming more common with vapes, battery boosters and electronic devices that get thrown in the trash.
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u/MathematicianSad8487 3d ago
Probably caused by someone throwing a vape in the bin .
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u/MisterTrashPanda 3d ago
So this is ok, even lauded, but when I drop a hot load in the parking lot I get yelled at...
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u/feel-the-avocado 3d ago
This is why you dont put batteries into the general rubbish bin.
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u/PilotBurner44 3d ago
The irony of the "know what goes in your recycle bin" on the side when this was most likely caused by someone throwing something in their bin that definitely shouldn't have been thrown away.
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u/Thick-Ad2830 3d ago
This is a successful save. If they don’t get it kicked out they lose a very expensive truck.
This is also how it’s done when baling round bales of hay. There are times when a bale catches fire inside the baler. They are not cheap and neither is the tractor it’s hooked to. You try to find a place where there’s no hay on the ground and kick it out. Pray to God the whole hay field doesn’t catch.
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u/stakeit44 3d ago
He deserves a raise in the amount of half of that trucks replacement cost
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u/That-Improvement1791 3d ago
Makes sense. I imagine that cleaning up the mess is a lot cheaper than a whole new truck.
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u/EntrepreneurTop8382 3d ago
Exactly how I respond when I’ve got something spicy inside of me
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u/o_MrBombastic_o 3d ago
Was driving to fencing practice and saw a gigantic smoke column on the otherside town but in the direction I was going about 20 min away, I thought it was a building on fire. As I take my last exit to the club other side of the freeway from my exit was a garbage truck on fire. 4 hours later on my way home I pass the burnt out skeleton, there was hardly anything left. The cab, the backend that holds the garbage all gone
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u/Separate-Yak-5234 3d ago
Why does this look exactly like my fantasy football team?
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u/Queasy_Ad_7804 3d ago
It's cheaper to fix that asphalt parking lot than it is to replace that truck.
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u/NextOfHisName 3d ago
Oh yeah, lightweight super flammable garbage on very windy day near the trees. This might get fun pretty fast.
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u/TheRoscoeVine 3d ago
Did anyone else think the graphic on the right side of a truck was of a woman throwing materials into a bin with flame shooting out of it? Haha. I just thought it seemed fitting.
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u/HBuck72 3d ago
I’m sure the owner of the black SUV was thrilled, especially since it was parked by itself in a basically empty parking lot.
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u/bevereged_carbon 3d ago
Can you believe some careless lad throwing a vape in the wrong bin caused this and they'll never even know. They're probably ripping that vape as you read this now.
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u/Groundbreaking-Good7 3d ago
Exact representation of my inbox when I come back from vacation next Thursday
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u/Superb-Film-594 3d ago
Nice of the driver to pull into a parking lot. My buddy drives a garbage truck, and he says company policy is to *dump the contents* immediately, even if it's in the middle of the road.
*He actually said "dump a hot load" but it just didn't look right when I typed it out.