Sensors, cameras at city landfills in MCD plan to prevent fires

Temperature sensors, expansion of CCTV camera network, and spark arresters in trucks are just some of the measures the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has undertaken in an attempt to reduce fires at the three garbage mountains in Delhi, officials aware of the matter said on Wednesday.

- Paras Singh

The efforts come a year after a massive fire broke out at the Bhalswa landfill in April last year, when the site burnt for days on end. With temperatures set to rise, the effectiveness of these measures will be put to the test in the coming weeks. A senior municipal corporation official from the sanitation department said that the fires at the landfill sites are caused due methane emanating from the decomposing organic waste.

"During summe methane generation increases and rising temperatures cause the build-up of trapped methane inside the layers at landfill sites. It is a natural phenomenon so our strategy mostly focused on early detection of small fires which can be doused before they go out of control," the official said.

Last year, around 20 instances of small and big landfill fires were reported and the inferno at Bhalswa lasted for over a week, making it the biggest such episode in the last decade. Nearly 10 fire tenders of the Delhi Fire Services were rushed to control the blaze.