Fire Chief: Safety Regs Don't Address Open Land Covered in Mulch

Fire Chief Steven Pasdon says that while he’s not keen on the situation – for safety reasons – of having vast quantities of mulch piled 50 feet high, there’s not a whole lot he can do about it.

at the lot off Farm Avenue leased by J.D. Raymond Transport, Inc. was the second large mulch fire in that spot in less than two years. , damaged about $1 million in equipment and burned for days until it was fully extinguished.

That fire also brought to light the fact that the wood recycling business may have been operating in violation of state fire safety regulations. Neither the property owner nor J.D. Raymond had obtained a permit from the to store more than 2,500 cubic feet of combustible material on-site, as regulations stipulate, and most of the massive mulch piles were 50-60 feet high.

Safety regulations say no piles higher than 20 feet can be stored outside.

The problem, however, is not whether bark mulch is in fact combustible or not, according to Pasdon, the real hitch lies in that the property is just acres of open land.

The official language that addresses storage permits for combustible or flammable materials only speaks to situations where there is a building or otherwise premises where the material is stored. Other than the mulch, logs and brush, J.D. Raymond only keeps some heavy machinery at the site.

Pasdon said the regulation, as written, doesn’t address the scope of the operation then. He added that while the state Board of Fire Prevention Regulations did make a ruling in a single unrelated case, declaring bark mulch to be a combustible material, it still doesn’t give the clarity needed to be strongly enforceable.

Even so, city officials will continue to investigate other means of increasing safety at the site in cooperation with the company, he said. “We’re taking another hard look at it again.”

Pasdon noted, however, there might not be much anyone can do under the current setup.

The land itself is mostly secluded from residential homes or other facilities and in order to turn bark into mulch, J.D. Raymond needs to have those large piles, which decompose over time into said mulch.

“There’s no implication they did anything wrong,” Pasdon said.

In fact, the probable cause identified by the Fire Department in both blazes is spontaneous combustion within a mulch pile. Pasdon explained that while the decomposition occurs organically, material at the top of the pile compresses that below it and generates heat – heat enough to plausibly break out in flames at the tiniest spark, which could have been any number of things.

In 2010, one concern for firefighters at the site was the proximity of a tanker carrying 3,200 gallons of diesel fuel. Pasdon said that only smaller fuel trucks are close to the mulch now and the larger vehicles are kept far enough away so as to not pose an immediate threat.

On the legal front, a subcommittee for the state board of regulators is working on updating and reworking the pertinent safety codes to try and address these situations, Pasdon said, but that’s progressing very slowly.

One of the high points for firefighters at the scene on Monday was the presence of the department’s new aerial platform truck, according to Pasdon.

He said the tower ladder was used to blanket the entire area with large quantities of water all at once and allowed fire crews to get the blaze under control relatively quickly. This time, there was no damage to any equipment.

Detail crews patrolled the area overnight and the fire was fully extinguished by early the next morning.

Pasdon said two years ago the conditions were much windier and spread the flames across a large swath of the site, the fire started on a Sunday and wasn’t noticed as quickly and naturally, the department didn’t have that new truck.