Relief as smoke clears in Iqaluit after the dump fire

A long-smouldering dump fire in Iqaluit, dubbedthe "dumpcano" by some residents, is finally out.

The smoky blaze had been burning on the south side of the Nunavut capital since May.

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My only question was why it took them so long because this could have been extinguished a long time ago, saidresident James Karetak.

The City of Iqaluit says the dump fire was officially out ataround 10 a.m. Tuesday, but during theafternoon, what looked likesmoke was still rising from the site.

I still think theres something going on out there, saidIqaluit residentAnne-Marie Beaudoin-Alain. I hope theyre going to end this very quick, but for now, I still think its not under control.

Mike Noblett, the site manager during the fire fight,says any smoke people see at the site now is actually just steam.

Noblett, who works with Global Forensics Inc. out of Red Deer, Alta.,described how excavators first dug out a pond near the burning pile and hoses stretching to a nearby creek filled it with water.

Machines next removed sections of the hot garbage and dunked them several times into a pond of water.

The cooled garbage was then dumped into a flatter and shorter pile. Noblett said workers will spend the next week reshaping it into a new pile, making sure it's sloped at an angle that willhopefully keep wind from pushing inside.

"Although we've got this fire out, there is a natural heating process because of the breakdown of the material. But if we keep the wind out of there, it keeps that temperature down and it won't overheat again."

Garbage piled 17 metres high

The city had initially planned to let the fire burn itself out because fighting the hot and unstable pile was too dangerous. Public outcry and the closure of schools due to smoke prompted city council to reconsider.

When the fire began, the mound was about the length of a football field and as high as 17 metres on one side. The fire deep within the garbage created heat up to 2,000 C.

But letting the fire take care of itself would have taken about three years. And fumes had forced schools to close for several days and prompted health warnings.

Instead, experts were brought in and crews started fighting the fire 17 days ago.

The fire was put out almost two weeks ahead of schedule.

Workers to monitorsite until spring

George Seigler, the city's deputy fire chief, said workers will monitor and take daily temperature readings of the stack until spring.

Landfill staff have already received new training on how to properly separate combustibles from incoming trash, said Noblett.

"It'll be next to get the people of Iqaluit to co-operate with the operators of the landfill and, at a minimum, tell them what they're bringing to the dump," he said.

"If they've got batteries, tell them they've got batteries. If they've got a propane tank, don't hide it."

The cost of putting out the fire was estimated to be about $2.2million, but Noblett believes the bill will be less since it didn't take as long as expected to put it out.

The city wants to build a modern landfill since the dump, built in 1995, was intended to be used for only five years.

There have been three other fires at this dump since mid-December and Fire Chief Luc Grandmaison has suggested that those fires may have never been fully extinguished. In 2010, one blaze took six weeks to snuff out.