As Hickory's Solid Waste Manager John Yvars looked over the 2.5-ton heap of smoldering garbage his driver had dumped in a parking lot, he said, "He did exactly what he should have done in this situation — he saved a $200,000 truck by dumping its load."
At about 11 a.m. Wednesday, Keith Lewis was more than halfway through his rounds when he noticed smoke billowing from his truck. So Lewis drove to the parking lot behind 610 Fourth St., SW, and dumped the truck's contents. The Hickory Fire Department responded and soaked the trash and extinguished the fire.
The fire appears to have been ignited by something hot put into a curbside rollout container that was dumped into the truck.
"People have to be careful about what they throw into the garbage," Yvars said. "This isn't the first time this has happened."
Yvars said the truck was about a third full when Lewis dumped the trash out.
The truck wasn't damaged and Lewis was able to complete his rounds.
After Lewis left, a front-end loader was dispatched and loaded the garbage into a dump truck. Then a sweeper truck cleaned the remaining trash from the parking lot.
No one was injured.
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