A pile of wood chips and other debris ignited early Thursday morning, sending flames 20 to 30 feet into the air. (submitted photo/Florian Schulz)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

STUBBORN BLAZE

Large hog fuel fire ignites south of Nanaimo

Aug 11, 2022 | 11:20 AM

NANAIMO — Fire crews from four different departments were woken early and kept busy by a large fire along Brenton Page Rd.

An approximately 50 feet by 70 feet pile of hog fuel, a wood waste product from chipping, ignited around 1 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 11 at High Line Environmental, east of Hwy. 1.

Florian Schulz, fire chief with North Oyster Volunteer Fire Department, told NanaimoNewsNOW flames were 20 to 30 feet in the air on arrival and the blaze took firefighters six hours to fully extinguish.

“They’re just difficult to fight based on the fact that you have things on the top that are blocking the seed of the fire and you can’t really get any firefighters right above that either because there’s always the chance of collapse.”

In addition to North Oyster crews, mutual aid calls went out to Ladysmith, North Cedar and Cranberry departments

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Four water tenders, two engines, a ladder truck and three pickup trucks were all working the scene in addition to firefighters on the ground.

Schulz said these fires occur from time to time and are a result of the wood materials breaking down.

“It’s typically just the ignition through the materials themselves. Once you have those woodchips essentially in a big pile, they just heat up as part of the decomposing process.”

Schulz noted the company had been turning over the pile as part of regular maintenance.

The situation was left to the property owner, who will continue to use heavy machinery to expose any remaining hot spots.

No structure damage was reported, however Schulz said a hydraulic line on one of their pieces of equipment blew out during firefighting efforts.

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