Fire at Yellowknife landfill extinguished, says city
City did not say how fire started or how much it had cost to put out
A fire that started out as a hotspot at Yellowknife's dump more than three months ago has finally been extinguished, according to the city.
In a media release on Thursday, a city spokesperson said the subsurface fire in a cell containing construction and demolition waste had been put out and that the solid waste facility had returned to regular hours.
The release did not say how the fire started, or how much the city had spent to extinguish it.
Garett Cochrane, a city councillor who was also serving as deputy mayor, said in mid-January that the fire had cost the city about $80,000 – a figure that he expected to grow.
The city said the hotspot was first detected on Oct. 30 because someone noticed melting snow. Sometime in early January, however, it escalated into what the city called a subsurface fire.
Cochrane said at the time that although hot spots happen often and that surface fires have also happened at the landfill before, this was the first time the city was dealing with a subsurface fire.
The city was dealing with it, he said, by excavating the area and dousing it with water.
The solid waste facility is open to the public Tuesday through Sunday, and to commercial contractors every day of the week.
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