Firefighters respond to Centre County transfer station

The Centre County Recycling and Refuse Authority’s transfer station saw smoke and firetrucks on Thursday.

The call went out at about 12:30 p.m. About 10 trucks from multiple companies, including Alpha, Boalsburg and Pleasant Gap, responded to the location off East College Avenue.

The fire was contained by 1 p.m.

Alpha Fire Chief Jeff Martin said he was told trash was being moved in the building with a front-end loader when possibly a propane cylinder was sparked, causing a small explosion. The worker driving the vehicle was able to move the burning debris away from the rest of the pile and contain it.

“When we got here, although we had a lot of smoke, the fire itself was pretty minor,” Martin said.

Past fires at the transfer station have been caused by similar accidents, he said.

The reason for the multi-department response, he said, is because Alpha was responding to another call in Ferguson Township when the call for the transfer station fire went out. When the Ferguson call turned out to be minor, Alpha was able to respond to the station call.

Centre County Recycling and Refuse Authority Executive Director Ted Onufrak said the building itself suffered no damage. While there is a sprinkler system in the building, the flames didn’t reach high enough to trigger it.

“We might get (a fire) every other year or so, and usually it’s from something like that,” Onufrak said. “We’ve had some from ashes. We’ve had more of them in garbage trucks where we knew stuff was on fire when it was coming in.”

This story was originally published January 7, 2016 at 1:06 PM with the headline "Firefighters respond to Centre County transfer station."