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July 30, 2007

Crews battle Richmond's stubborn stump dump fire

RICHMOND -- Firefighters from six communities spent much of the weekend and most of today trying to contain a persistent stump dump fire that crews said covered an area about the size of a football field.

For what seemed like the umpteenth time this summer, the stump dump on Skunk Hill Road near Route 95 burned and burned, even as firefighters, aided by occasional thundershowers, poured water on the hot spots.

Firefighters responded on Saturday morning, again on Sunday and again today, at about 2:30 a.m., said Hope Valley Fire Chief Frederick A. Stanley.

Aiming to put the fire out for good, firefighters called in heavy equipment to dig a trench that will separate sections of the nine-acre stump dump that have burned from sections that have not burned.

Stanley said the trench will hopefully stop the fire from spreading underneath the ground as firefighters try to put it out from above.

“You’ve got tremendous heat down under the ground, and what happens is it has to go some place,” he said. “So the more dirt that you put on top of it and the more water that you put on top of it, you force it to go into places where it hasn’t been burning.”

Stanley said he expected firefighters to be at the scene "all night."

-- Journal staff writer Randal Edgar

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 6:12 PM | Permalink

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