PEOPLE living or travelling close to a Scottish landfill have been warned to keep their windows and doors closed as emergency services say a fire on the site will burn for days.
The warning was issued after a multi-agency response group met to discuss the situation at the Valencia Waste Management site at Dunbar, East Lothian.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) have been at the site since Monday afternoon and have advised that while the fire is under control and being managed by the site operator it “may continue to burn for many days".
Tue 29/8 We are aware of & in attendance at a commercial landfill site in Dunbar The fire is under control & being managed it may continue to burn for many days It is advised those living nearby or travelling near to the affected area should keep their windows & doors closed pic.twitter.com/yzhnUmLgiD
— SFRS Scottish Borders East (@SfrsEast) August 29, 2023
SFRS Scottish Borders East wrote on Twitter/X: "We are aware of and in attendance at a commercial landfill site in Dunbar.
"The fire is under control and being managed [but] it may continue to burn for many days.
"It is advised those living nearby or travelling near to the affected area should keep their windows and doors closed."
The site is used for disposal of non hazardous waste and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) have been working with East Lothian Council Protective Services to monitor the situation.
The local authority said on Tuesday evening that a "multi-agency incident response group meeting" had been held to discuss the ongoing incident.
A council spokesperson said: “The current wind direction is blowing the plume of smoke away from main housing areas but general health advice is to keep windows closed and avoid being outside for long periods of time if the smoke is particularly bad.”
A fire service spokesperson said on Monday: "We received the call at around 1.40pm this afternoon and the fire is still smouldering but crews have just stood down.
"They will return during daylight. There were three appliances present during the height of the fire."
The Dunbar landfill site is no longer owned or operated by Viridor, according to that firm's website, following the sale of its landfill business to Valencia Waste Management in April 2022.
