Ecco Recycling landfill fire 'could last weeks or even months,' says Calgary fire chief

A landfill in southeast Calgary could continue to burn for weeks or even months, says the city’s fire rescue services chief, as the city seeks an injunction against the company operating the site to stop its “unlawful” storage of materials.

The city will also send Ecco Recycling, the company at the heart of the fire, a bill for efforts to extinguish the blaze at its facility, although the fire chief hasn’t provided an estimate yet.

“This is literally a mountain of garbage with deep pockets of active fire,” said CFD Chief Steve Dongworth at a news conference on Wednesday. He added that the size of the landfill has complicated firefighters’ efforts.

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“The steep, mountainous face of this fire makes access for crews and trucks particularly challenging.”

Dongworth said the fire hasn’t been doused, despite bringing it under control.

“Fire activity remains confined to the landfill site, and significant progress has been made over the past week,” he added.

“Although we should be able to control smoke from the fire in the coming days, this incident could last weeks or even months until on-site fire risk is fully mitigated.”

Dongworth said the city is working with experienced private contractors, although he didn’t name any companies.

“We’re confident we’re taking the right steps in the right order with the right resources at this time, and we believe we’ll have representatives from that firm on site here in the next couple of days again to validate our approach.”

Ward 11 Councillor Rob Ward said he was surprised to see the scale of the operation.