Underground Fires at Ohio Landfills

Ohio’s Environmental Protection Agency is dealing with three fires in landfill waste. The most recent was discovered in August 2009 in the Rumpke landfill north of Cincinnati in Hamilton County. Another was found in 2006 in Stark County. A third fire is suspected at a facility in Columbiana County. $4 million in closure bonds have been issued to counter that third site. The sudden rise in these events in Ohio has troubled the agency, as there are not established, guaranteed approaches to extinguishing these fires. Prevention is the best medicine, and that requires a better understanding and monitoring of the waste stream.