On Tuesday, April 1, 2025, at 10:30 am, Chief 6 - John “Otis” Darling marked up on Kent County Fire “Channel 1”, requesting Kent Central dispatch the Chestertown VFC for the trash truck on fire to the rear of our station. (While we do keep a trash dumpster behind our station, the truck in question was “not” servicing it. It had been traveling on Maple Avenue.
The incident started when the truck driver banged long and hard on the front door of our Engine Room. As frequently happens, we had personnel congregated in the Engine Room, and additional personnel taking a Radiation Response class in a different part of the station. The driver, realizing his vehicle was on fire, had pulled his truck onto our front apron. Initially, the driver offered to dump the load there on the apron. Chief 6 stopped him from doing that, saying the pile of burning debris would effectively block our equipment, preventing our response to this incident, and any subsequent incidents. Chief 6 directed the driver… back his vehicle behind the station. This had the advantage of keeping our front apron clear and granting direct access to a storm drain. Fires involving trash trucks historically require large amounts of water to contain and extinguish. The storm drain would assist us in managing this run-off. To protect the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, our crews placed permeable absorption material over the drain grate to catch the inevitable solid material that was sure to follow. We had to use various solid objects, found around the station property, to anchor the padding in-place. The stiff breeze that was blowing kept trying to dislodge the padding.
It was determined the most effective measure was bringing Tower 6 around where we could use the elevated Master Stream. The plan was to introduce water into the top, through the opening where the contents of dumpsters are emptied. This operation required water volume, not pressure. As a result, to supply the Tower with water, a 3” supply hose was stretched from inside the fire station.
As fortune sometimes provides, there was only a small area burning at the very top of the vehicle load. We used a combination of the Master Stream, and the basket hose line, to make quick work of the fire. The fire was extinguished within 10 – 15 minutes. The truck was permitted to sit there for a time, allowing the water that was contained inside to drain off.
After a suitable amount of time, the driver was allowed to depart to dump the load. It’s believed he was headed for the Sandtown Landfill, a Delaware Solid Waste Authority (DSWA) facility near Felton, Delaware.
It’s not often fires, and emergency incidents come to us at the fire station, but it does happen!
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