Yesterday, before 1pm, the sound of sirens and the smell of burning trash enveloped the Towne Terrace area of Los Gatos.
A Green Team SJ (Waste Connections) garbage truck was driving along when the trash in the back of the vehicle ignited.
“In order for the truck to not catch on fire itself, the driver dumped the load into the street,” said Santa Clara County Fire Department Public Information Specialist Erica Ray said.
“Firefighters arrived to extinguish whatever fire was in the refuse.”
Firefighters from the Los Gatos station were joined by those from the Quito station, which primarily serves the Monte Sereno area.
The blaze was quickly brought under control, and the Quito crew didn’t stay on scene for long.
Firefighters were able to gain control of the incident by 12:55pm and cleared the scene at 2:38pm.
The cause of the fire remains undetermined, but authorities took the opportunity to remind the public about the dangers of putting lithium-ion batteries into the garbage.
Most cities and towns have a program where you put used batteries in a container on top of your trash bin, so they can be safely disposed of, Ray noted.
“It could be multiple things that could cause a fire like that,” she said. “These types of fires aren’t totally unheard of. Obviously it’s a type of fire that could be prevented in most cases by people properly disposing of materials that could combust or are smoldering.”
In 2022, recycler iDiskk, LLC, its principal Yue Zou, and her husband Lei Zhang, were hit with $25,000 in civil penalties for causing fires to start in the back of garbage trucks in Campbell, when they threw lithium-ion batteries into the trash.
And in February, a load of burning cardboard and other materials was ejected onto northbound lanes of Highway 17, ruining the morning commute for thousands.
View more photography from Nate Underhill here.
