A large fire at the Watertown Regional Landfill Monday, Sept. 30, kept firefighters and landfill crews busy for about 3½ hours. Once the smoke cleared, Scott Davis, Watertown’s solid waste superintendent, told the Watertown Current the likely culprit was a disposed lithium-ion battery.
“With a landfill fire or a transfer station fire, it’s almost always the result of these batteries,” he said.
Lithium-ion batteries are found in commonly used personal electronic devices such as cell phones, tablet computers, and laptops, E-bikes, electric toothbrushes, tools, hoverboards, scooters, and for solar power backup storage.
While these batteries provide an effective and efficient source of power, the likelihood of them overheating, catching on fire, and even exploding, is a big problem.
“If they get run over by some piece of equipment or pushed across a concrete floor at a transfer station, they can catch fire and explode,” Davis said. “They burn really hot, and in an environment like a landfill, there is a lot of paper and plastic that can catch fire.”

It took firefighters and landfill crews more than three hours to extinguish Monday’s fire at the Watertown Regional Landfill. (Courtesy photo)
Davis said it’s important for people to realize the danger of improperly disposing of lithium-ion batteries. Those items should be taken to separate recycling or household hazardous waste collection sites.
Monday’s fire was fanned by strong, 35-mph winds, but Davis said firefighters and landfill workers did an excellent job of fighting the blaze. There were fears of the fire jumping the landfill perimeter and spreading into an adjacent corn field, but crews worked to prevent that from happening.
“Everybody did a great job fighting that fire,” Davis said.
Watertown Fire Rescue was called to the landfill at about 11:30 a.m. on Monday. Crews discovered that multiple areas of the landfill were burning with a majority of the fire located on the southeast portion of the garbage cell.
Multiple WFR units included Battalion 1, Engine 1, Brush 3, and Tender 1 arrived at the scene first, but they were soon joined by Brush 2, Fire 2, Fire 3, and units from Castlewood Fire, which provided a tender truck and pumper truck with 4 personnel.
Firefighters contained the fire while the landfill crews spread clay on it to help extinguish it.
Watertown Fire Rescue was assisted by Watertown Police Department, Watertown Regional Landfill staff, and Castlewood Fire Department.
“I can’t say enough about how our staff responded,” Davis said. “It’s not easy spreading clay over a fire, and they did it without damage to any equipment or without anybody getting hurt. They put in a lot of training for this type of incident, and it showed.”
Davis, who was hired as solid waste superintendent in January, said Monday’s fire was the first major one at the landfill in about 10 years.