When firemens showed up on scene, they asked the chauffeur to discard his load in the street, which would lower the danger of anything on the truck itself– fuel, CNG, and so on– igniting. The firemens might put out the blaze quickly, treating it like a regular garbage fire, and have Groot transport away the particles later. This didn’t work either. The flames had actually spread out far enough by this indicate put the truck’s discarding system out of commission.

Firemens unrolled pipes and hooked up to a neighboring fire hydrant. They acknowledged that the truck was CNG-powered, as were numerous Groot automobiles. CNG uses a lower upkeep expense, utilizes less fuel, and develops less contamination than diesel, however finest practices presently recommend not spraying CNG cylinders straight with water. Firemens rather attempted to intend water right into the back of the trash truck without moistening the CNG cylinders close by on the roofing.

They were awaiting the obvious hiss of the pressure relief system to set off. These valves generally open within 2 to 5 minutes, depending upon fire conditions, and they ought to can venting all their gas some minutes before the CNG containers would otherwise remain in risk of blowing up. The hiss never ever came, and as Fire Chief Lance Harris and his team worked to protect the scene and put water onto the burning load, the CNG cylinders took off catastrophically rather.

In a board of trustees fulfilling today in Arlington Heights, Harris stated the occurrence, keeping in mind that he felt fortunate to be alive– and grateful that no area workers or citizens sustained major injuries.

“We can’t prove it,” he stated, however after 2 months of examining the scenario, his department had actually concluded with high possibility that the fire had actually been triggered by a lithium-ion battery disposed of into a recycling container. This suspicion was based upon the quantity of fire and the heat and speed with which it burned; lithium-ion batteries that go into “thermal runaway” can burn hot, at around 750 ° Fahrenheit (399 ° C).

Harris’ takeaway was clear: recycle even little lithium-ion batteries properly, as they can trigger genuine threats if positioned into the waste system, where they are typically affected or compressed.