November 2020 Fire Report: Another Fire Surge?
If you ever watch Kermit the Frog play the straight newsman in a skit on “The Muppet Show,” the end of the segment always ends in absolute chaos. That is how I feel about 2020 so far. We started the year normal, and then in March through June, we saw a gradual build to the lowest fire incidents we have seen in the normally high summer months. In September, we experienced a huge spike in scrap metal fires. And finally, in October and November, things got even worse, as we had the two highest number of fire incidents in each month ever.
In November, we experienced 25 fires at our waste and recycling facilities—the second highest month of fires at our waste and recycling facilities since I began keeping data in February 2016. Of the 25 fires, 13 were waste/paper/plastic fires, 11 fire incidents occurred at scrap metal/e-scrap/construction and demolition (C&D) facilities and one occurred in an organics operation. At Fire Rover, we extinguished 15 fires at our clients’ facilities; ten of those fires were at waste and recycling operations and five occurred in scrap and C&D operations.
If you ever watch Kermit the Frog play the straight newsman in a skit on “The Muppet Show,” the end of the segment always ends in absolute chaos. That is how I feel about 2020 so far. We started the year normal, and then in March through June, we saw a gradual build to the lowest fire incidents we have seen in the normally high summer months. In September, we experienced a huge spike in scrap metal fires. And finally, in October and November, things got even worse, as we had the two highest number of fire incidents in each month ever.
In November, we experienced 25 fires at our waste and recycling facilities—the second highest month of fires at our waste and recycling facilities since I began keeping data in February 2016. Of the 25 fires, 13 were waste/paper/plastic fires, 11 fire incidents occurred at scrap metal/e-scrap/construction and demolition (C&D) facilities and one occurred in an organics operation. At Fire Rover, we extinguished 15 fires at our clients’ facilities; ten of those fires were at waste and recycling operations and five occurred in scrap and C&D operations.
During the past 12 months, the waste and recycling industry has experienced 315 reported facility fires in the U.S. and Canada. Additionally, we incurred 22 reported injuries and three deaths that can either be directly or indirectly attributed to these fire incidents. Based on reasonable assumptions, we can extrapolate that 1,800-plus facility fires have occurred during that time, which, based on the number of facilities reported by the Environmental Research & Education Foundation (EREF), is more than 40 percent of the industry. I define “reported facility fires” as any fire that has been reported by the media that occurs at a waste or recycling facility in the U.S. and Canada. Typically, the fires that are reported by the media are larger fires that require fire professionals to arrive on scene and where there are affects that the public can witness.
So now that we have had two months of a fire surge, we must ask the dreaded “why” question. Waste fires were down when the pandemic started and then slowly increased every month until June. Then in July and August, we had our lowest months of fire incidents ever for those months. In September, we saw a surge in scrap metal fires, and during the last two months, we have seen waste fire increases.
As we near the end of 2020, I am done trying to speculate. Now it is time to wait until the new year and consolidate the years’ worth of data for the “2020 Annual Waste and Recycling Facility Report.” I have a sinking suspicion that January is going to come with more questions than answers that we will know more about after things return to “normal” in 2021.
