[Update: May 13, 2022, 11:30 a.m.] Some of mounds of compost that caught fire Thursday evening are still smoldering, and staff and contractors at Tajiguas Landfill continue to turn the piles and spray them with water, said Lael Wageneck, spokesperson for Santa Barbara County Public Works. They'll keep doing that for a few more days until the pockets of heat are completely extinguished. The winds are much calmer today, blowing in the 5mph range with gusts to 20mph, Wageneck said.
The fire broke out in mounds of compost set out on a large deck up by the anaerobic digester, he said, not down by the machines that grind green waste into mulch. The sifting machine that separates the compost from the trash that survives digestion was also damaged by the fire, Wageneck said, clarifying that recycled material was not involved.
[Original Story] A fire flamed to life in the mulch piles at Tajiguas Landfill around 7 p.m. on a windy Thursday evening, Santa Barbara County Fire reported at its Twitter feed. Automated weather stations at nearby Refugio Canyon clocked the winds as hitting 48 mph last night. To contain the fire, heavy equipment at the dump spread the piles of mulch and recyclables out while firefighters from the county and the Forest Service poured water on it. The new Firehawk helicopter was also called out to drop 1,000 pounds of water on the fire at a time.