Fire crews respond to massive Coaldale recycling plant fire

COALDALE, Alta. -

Just before 3 p.m. on Friday, workers at the 2Point0 recycling plant were running plastic material through a machine to be processed.

Sparks flew off the machine, which started a fire.

"We were outside. We were running some material at 2:56 (p.m.) because at three o'clock we were going to shut down and send people home. So we were already getting prepared to send people home," said Tyler Beaulieu with 2Point0.

Workers tried to put out the fire but the flames quickly spread to a pile of loose plastic.

The pile of debris lit up and turned into a much bigger blaze.

That's when workers realized they needed to call for help.

"Being the day it was, with the wind, it started to spread. So in order to work with the fire department and obviously not putting ourselves in danger, we began to dig fire trenches all over the yard with our equipment – our excavators and our loaders," Beaulieu said.

Fire crews from Coaldale, Picture Butte, Coalhurst and Taber quickly responded.

Firefighters worked for several hours to contain the fire and stop it from spreading to any other material in the yard.

The fire and smouldering plastic was eventually put out.

Employees at 2Point0 believe a battery is to blame.

"We don't take batteries, but they do end up in certain things. We never even generally know what kind it was ... whether it was a double A or a phone. We take construction demolition materials, so we sometimes see lithium batteries from power equipment, things like that," Beaulieu said.

2Point0 says it will look at ways to avoid incidents like this in the future.

No one was injured and there was no damage to any buildings or machinery.