Fire Department

Firefighters were sent to an eastside construction site twice on Thursday for dumpster fires caused by discarded metals.
 
At approximately 3:30 p.m., Engine 3 (E3) arrived at the 1200 block of East Washington Ave. and met with an employee who had just extinguished a pile of insulation that caught on fire. Firefighters investigated the scene and found a piece of hot metal among the debris.
 
Torches had been used to cut through metal structures, and the leftover pieces were being directly discarded with other materials. Before clearing the scene, E3 instructed construction workers to set the metals aside on concrete, spray them down with water, and cool them off before tossing them in the dumpster.
 
Less than two hours later, at 5:13 p.m., E3 was dispatched to the same site. This time, the dumpster was on fire with no construction workers present. Firefighters used two booster tanks to extinguish the flames.
 
Although this was the second time that the Madison Fire Department was called to this site, the construction worker that E3 spoke to earlier had reported that there was also a fire in the dumpster the day before. Arrangements were made to have this dumpster removed altogether.