SELMA, TEXAS – At least six area fire departments and several state agencies are now involved in the large mulch fire that continues to smolder at a landscape company on Lookout Road just inside the Selma city limits.
David Padula, Selma police chief and a former fire marshal in Guadalupe County, said they were preparing for “a long-term operation,” overnight and into tomorrow, and perhaps longer.
Padula said the biggest challenge is the sheer size of it, 40 feet tall at its highest point, 200 yards long and 50 to 70 yards wide.
“Water is not going to do it. We’re going to have to get the pile broken down and take it apart,” Padula said.
He said after heavy equipment removes the mulch, section by section, they will water it down to make sure the fire is out, then load the mulch into trucks that will take it off-site.
After the Universal City Fire Department brought in its aerial truck, the water sprayed from above changed the dark clouds of smoke into white, brownish plumes carried south by the northerly breezes.
Padula said so far, no evacuations of nearby homes are necessary.
A subdivision is adjacent to Quality Organic Products that owns the mulch pile is on the northern edge of the property.
Some of the residents said the mulch fire realized their worst fears.
Robert Harr who lives near the subdivision entrance said he realizes the landscape company was there before the subdivision was built, but the mulch pile was smaller and lower, until a couple of years ago.
Harr said he told his wife and neighbors then, “That stuff is going to catch fire. These homes are 300 or 400 feet away.”
“It’s a hazard to have all that mulch there,” said homeowner Tony Ortiz, whose house is just across the fence from the mulch fire. “They need to move that place.”
The owners of Quality Organic Products did not return calls requesting comment.
But a spokeswoman for the Texas Environmental Quality Commission said the agency had not asked the company to move, but it did offer “outreach assistance to deal with areas of non-compliance.”
Records show there were reported odors coming from the pile and an unauthorized discharge in the alley next to the homes. TCEQ gave the company the option of “re-locating certain activities” along Lookout Road.