Fire at the SWAMP Landfill kept members of the Winkler Fire Department working throughout the night.

Fire Chief Richard Paetzold says just after 10:20 Wednesday evening they were dispatched to the landfill northeast of Winkler. He says when they arrived on the scene, the blaze was well involved in the main holding area of the landfill.

Paetzold says SWAMP employees were attempting to extinguish it by cover the fire with dirt with large machines, however, those attempts were unsuccessful, and that is when the department started running their tankers. In total, Paetzold says they hauled 43,000 gallons of water in to help extinguish the fire.

He notes access in and out of the landfill, and the organization within the site was definitely helpful in getting their trucks in and out of the yard.

In terms of value, there was not much they were trying to protect. Paetzold says it was more the environmental concerns of the fire they had in mind. "In any landfill, the burning of material, depending on what the material is, releases smoke into the atmosphere. So we were just trying to minimize that. And they'll (SWAMP) be assessing what they'll be doing with the remaining material."

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

(Video courtesy of the Winkler Fire Department)