Fire at Wenatchee Transfer Station Thursday

Crews from Chelan County Fire District 1 responded to a structure fire at the Waste Management Wenatchee Transfer Station just before noon Thursday.

Battalion Chief Kelly Lindemann said that when firefighters arrived they found a 53-foot semi trailer full of garbage on fire. Had the fire occurred in a normal garbage truck, the load of fiery garbage could have been unloaded on site. However, the large semi containers that are used to transfer garbage are too large to dump at the transfer station..

"We had them bring a semi tractor up and hook it up to the trailer." Lindemann explained, "We held the fire in check and tried to extinguish it as much as possible. Then we escorted it and notified East Wenatchee Police and the Douglas County Sheriff's Office that we would be transporting that up Grant Road to the landfill. We were able to put the fire out enough to make it fairly small, to where they were able to get it (to the landfill) and dump it."

The garbage fire was brought to the regional landfill in Douglas County by about 12:50.