Firefighters continue to fight multi-day blaze at recycling facility north of Wichita

A fire that started Sunday at a recycling facility in Park City continued to burn Wednesday amid wind gusts in the high 30s.

Fire officials are unsure how long the piles of ground-up wood that are dozens of feet high will continue to burn.

Sedgwick County Fire District 1 Deputy Chief of Administration Kevin Nelson told the Sedgwick County Commission on Wednesday that nothing had changed from the day before. Firefighters were continuing to pour water onto the flames at Evergreen Pallet Recycling on 53rd Street North.

During a news conference Tuesday at the recycling facility, Sedgwick County Fire District 1 Chief Douglas Williams said fire hasn’t spread from the area firefighters started fighting Sunday. Just behind him, a huge smoke cloud billowed as water poured from the end of a fire truck ladder and onto a towering pile of ground-up wood.

On Tuesday, he said they’ve used more than 2 million gallons of water since the fire started. Park City Mayor John Lehnherr estimates the water bill for the city to be in the tens of thousands of dollars. The fire, which was reported at 6:48 p.m. Sunday, hasn’t spread beyond the facility on 53rd Street North. There have been no reports of injuries or buildings damaged, Williams said.

“At the current time we are having no issues with embers blowing … and we’ve not had one single fire yet from blowing ember and we feel at this time that it will continue that way through the rest of the evening,” he said.

Wind gusts had reached in the high 20s Tuesday afternoon. Williams expected higher gusts on Wednesday but said higher humidity should help offset the increase in winds.

The cause of the fire is still unknown, but isn’t believed to be intentional, Williams said. The business was closed when the fire started. Fire officials have been going through surveillance footage and checking the log of the company’s customers to see if they can glean any insight into what started the fire.

The company has been helping move some of the piles from downwind of the flames and helping put dirt on the embers, Williams said. A bulldozer could be seen moving dirt near the flames on Tuesday.

Williams said he doesn’t have any reason to believe the smoke from the fire would be any more toxic than smoke from a grassland fire.