Crews battle flaming pile of trash after garbage truck catches fire at Cal Poly
A garbage truck caught fire at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on Monday afternoon.
The San Luis Obispo City Fire Department received a call at 2:46 p.m. informing them that the trash inside a recycling truck container caught fire, Chief Todd Tuggle told The Tribune.
“The truck was on fire and driving through campus, it was chased down by Cal Poly police,” San Luis Obispo City Fire Department battalion chief Ray Hais said.
The driver dumped the truck’s load of flaming garbage into the street on North Perimeter Road to prevent the fire from spreading to the vehicle.
“When we arrived, we had a large pile of cardboard and recycling material that was on fire,” Hais said.
When firefighters arrived on the scene, they raked through the trash pile and sprayed it with water to extinguish the blaze, he said.
The fire was out within 10 minutes, Hais said.
Firefighters closed the road in front of the Agricultural Engineering Department building and were expected to remain on the scene for about an hour, Tuggle said.
Tuggle said garbage truck fires don’t happen very often.
He said discarded cigarettes and barbecue charcoal briquettes are the typical catalyst for garbage fires in people’s homes and in trash trucks.
The cause of this garbage fire was still under investigation as of Monday afternoon, Tuggle said.
This story was originally published December 9, 2024 at 3:52 PM.
