September 9, 1992 64 pages Office, Edito Display Advertising 980-0511 Mona Goldman at the Ferry Building Now spotlight: 28 Classifieds 986-6222 Distribution 986-1337 we ed NEWS photo Torry Peters A NORTH Vancouver District firefighter pours water on garbage burning inside the North Shore waste transfer station on Riverside Drive. The fire was reported at 4:45 a.m. Tuesday and was stil! burning to press time Tuesday morning. N. Shore transfer station closed as fire consumes tonnes of refuse NORTH VANCOUVER District Fire Department firefighters fought a stubborn fire Tuesday as flames burned through tonnes of garbage inside the North Shore waste transfer station at Riverside Drive. The fire was reported at 4:45 a.m. Hours later firefighters were attempting to cut a ventilation hole through the roof of the 33,000-square-foot metal and concrete building. The transfer station is operated by Wastech. The company is under contract to the Greater Vancouver Reg:onal District. While firefighters attempted to remove a section of roof Tuesday morning, a Wastech employee equipped with an oxygen tank operated a front-end loader through billowing smoke to dig through mounds of smouldering garbage in an effort to help By Michael Becker News Reporter firefighters hose down hot spots. A nearby construction com- pany volunteered the use of a se- cond front-end loader and opera- tor to assist in fighting the fire. Said North Vancouver District fire chief Gary Calder, ‘‘It’s a difficult fire to fight — to get to the seat of the fire. The fire is burning through eight to 12 feet deep of refuse in some places.”’ Because the fire followed the Labor Day long weekend, Calder said the transfer station was filled with as much as 600 tonnes of res- idential and commercial trash col- lected on the North Shore. Said Calder, ‘‘It’s going to be a long, arduous and dirty job dig- ging at it and soaking it down,”’ Although contained within the transfer station building itself, the fire was intensifying and burning in several areas by mid thing on Tuesday. The fire, originally located within the west side of the build- ing, was burning throughout the length of the structure at approx- imately 10 a.m. Officials at the scene speculated that the fire may have started with a cigarette butt or barbecue ref- use. The $4 million transfer station opened in 1986 when the Premier Street landfill site was closed to the public. The plant employs five people and handles on average approxi- 44 The fire is burning through eight to 12 feet deep of refuse in some places. 99 mately 400 tonnes of garbage dai- ly. . As many as 500 vehicles visit the plant daily to drop off refuse. Most of the waste is transferred to the GVRD incinerator in Bur- naby. Some materials are recycled and some of the waste is trucked to a landfill site in Cache Creek. Wastech operations manager Louie DeVent expected the local transfer station to reopen soon after the fire was extinguished. -- NVD fire chief Gary Calder Said DeVent at the scene, ‘‘We don’t know how extensive the fire is because the building is full of smoke. “There’s nothing particularly hazardous about it. The biggest problem really is the smoke at this point in time.” DeVent said past smaller fires at , the «siant have been extinguished by employees on the job, but Tuesday’s fire struck while the transfer station was closed. SINCE 1969