Landfill Fire In Suburban Chicago Rages On

Naperville, Ill. — An underground fire at a former landfill in suburban Chicago’s Greene Valley Forest Preserve continues to smolder while investigators have yet to discover the location of an oxygen leak that’s fueling the blaze, according to a report in the Daily Herald newspaper. "The blaze is a result of spontaneous combustion that likely occurred when oxygen reached decomposing garbage and heated up, officials believe," the paper says. "A grass fire erupted on the surface Aug. 7 and was extinguished, but the underground fire is surviving because of that oxygen leak." The fire presents no risk to the public, local officials told the paper.

Per a contract with the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, Ill., Houston-based Waste Management Inc. extracts landfill gas from the site to be converted into electricity, the paper says. "Landfill gas production has been halted in a section of the landfill where the fire is burning," the Daily Herald says.