'Spontaneous combustion' blamed for fires at Samborski Environmental compost plant

Firefightersin the rural municipality of Macdonald continue tobattle a number offiresatSamborskiEnvironmental that they believe werecaused by spontaneous combustion.

Reeve Brad Erbsaid crewshave responded to at least four fires at the composting facility near Winnipeg,on Brady Road just south of the Perimeter Highway,in the past 10 days.

"It's been a tough one to get completely extinguished and we've had flareups over the last couple days," Erb told CBC News on Tuesday evening.

Hesaid heathad builtup in thecomposting material and spontaneously combusted a couple weeks ago. Since then fire crews have responded to a number of flash flareups thanks to dry conditions and strong winds.

"It's not like it flares up and there's huge fires as much as there is just smoke, it's like a peat burning almost," said Erb.

He said the main concern is smoke crossing the Perimeter Highway and causing visibility issues for drivers.

"It hasn't because they've been keeping it under control but that's our main focus is maintaining the safety there."

'They are 100% at fault' says Samborski

"If we were working on the property on a daily basis this would have never happened in the first place. They are 100 per cent at fault at this,"said Leonard Samborski, owner of Samborski Environmental Ltd.

Samborskihas beenin a zoning battle with the RM of Macdonald for abouta decade over the Brady Roadland where his composting facility is located. He said in February council passed a notice of contravention resolution order that Samborski said essentially prevented his family from being on the property.

"Of course I'm concerned but what can I do?" an exasperated Samborskisaid.

The RM has accusedSamborskiof operating a composting, landscaping and recycling business on land that is not designated for conditional use, which is against the municipal zoning bylaw. Samborskisaid the land has a designatedenvironmental license and he hasnot broken any laws.

"Nobody has contacted me about the fires. If Advance [Electronics]had a fire there tonight don't you think the owner of business would be contacted sometime during the night?" askedSamborski.

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He saidthe fire initially startedmid-Januaryin a pile of leaves but he managed to getit under control by mixing snow with the organic material. Samborski said he got a phone call on March 2alerting him thatthe fire had reignited. He said when he go to the composting facility he found bylaw officers and the RCMPseizing his property.

"The fires got into the piles and we weren't allowed to manage them as we had been doing prior to the March 2nd raid," said Samborski.

"We had it under control with all the snow we were using, we had everything under control."

"I think it's just probably an unfortunate circumstance about how this all played out and that's where, kinda where we're at," saidErb.

"Could they have done something? Well they weren'ton the property so I don't think they initiated any desire for this to happen. It's just circumstances, I guess, led us to this and if we would have had rain and some wet weather in the forecast and reduced winds this likely wouldn'thave been an issue," said Erb.