BRODHEAD — “Hey, your truck’s on fire” are not words a garbage truck driver wants to hear while out collecting residential trash.
But when an observant resident in the 500 block of East 4th Avenue shouted out “Hey, your truck’s on fire!” on the morning of June 15, it gave the driver time to quickly jump out before flames overtook the cab and ultimately destroyed the entire vehicle.
No one was injured.
The cause of the fire, which started in the truck’s hopper, remains unknown.
“As far as what caused it, we may never know,” said Chris Searles, first assistant chief with the Brodhead Fire Department. “It’s hard to say.”
In his 40 years with the department, Searles said Brodhead has had dumpster fires but he couldn’t “ever remember us having a garbage truck fire.”
His best guess is that the fire ignited from something hot in someone’s trash.
“When it got dumped into the open environment, when air got to it, maybe it caused some embers to ignite and burn,” Searles said.
“We always ask residents to be very cognizant of what they put in. Especially with the season we’re in.”Danielle Pellitteri, vice president of sales and marketing at Pellitteri Waste Systems
But, he added, there was no way to determine the exact cause because the fire did so much damage to the truck and its contents.
By the time police and firefighters arrived at the scene, the Pellitteri Waste Systems garbage truck was fully engulfed in flames.
The fire also caused a small explosion, believed to be the result of the fire reaching the truck’s hydraulic system. Pieces of the hydraulic system were found in the front yard of a nearby residence, according to the Brodhead Police Department.
The incident shut down the street for about six and a half hours. Pellitteri had its safety coordinator at the scene “within an hour,” Searles said.
Pellitteri runs two garbage trucks weekly in Brodhead, with each truck collecting trash at about 700 homes before it dumps, said Danielle Pellitteri, vice president of sales and marketing at Pellitteri Waste Systems.
Pellitteri services more than 25 small cities, villages and townships in the region. The Monroe Common Council in May approved a seven-year contract for the company to add Monroe to its roster, ending the practice of city staff transporting trash directly to the landfill in Janesville.
Pellitteri said fires in residential garbage trucks are typically started by hot ashes and coals from fire pits or grills.
“We always ask residents to be very cognizant of what they put in,” she said. “Especially with the season we’re in.”