Mountain of mulch

All those downed trees and limbs caused by Hurricane Irene are waiting to do some good — and waiting and waiting.

All the yard debris collected by the city was chopped up and turned into a huge mulch pile that – once composted – was going to be given away to residents and business owners for their personal use.

But just as the city announced plans to give the mulch away, science and nature took over. The composting pile caught fire.

Smoke began to emerge from the pile, and Havelock firefighters had to respond to the smoldering heap on Jan. 17 at Walter B. Jones Park.

"There was a little bit of flame, not much," said Rick Zaccardelli, Havelock fire chief. "We used a deck gun and probable 10,000 or 12,000 gallons of water to soak the area, but it had already started to run to the back of the pile."

Firefighters responded again on Jan. 18 as more smoke was seen coming from the pile that consists of 5,000 cubic yards of chopped up yard waste from the Aug. 27 hurricane.

The city brought in a small back hoe to move around the debris, and the fire department soaked the 20-foot high pile again. Officials also put out a call to the U.S. Forest Service, which responded the morning of Jan. 19.

"The U.S. Forest Service came out and spread it out to get it cooled down," Zaccardelli said. "Since they did that, it sure did help us out."

For a time, firefighters were concerned smoke would impede traffic on East Main Street.

"It really could have been a bad time if it had got burning good," Zaccardelli said.

He said the forest service brought in a bulldozer used for plowing during wildfires to knock the pile down to about four or five feet, spreading the mulch over a larger area.

"They pushed it down so that it was manageable so that if it caught fire again, we could go in there with city equipment and put it out," Zaccardelli said.

Though the exact cause of the fire is not certain, Zaccardelli said a possible cause was spontaneous combustion due to the heat from the decomposition of the material.

Meanwhile, the city has stopped allowing residents to pick up the mulch for now. Officials have no timetable on when they will allow residents who want to spruce up their gardens and yards a chance to pick up more of the mulch.

Hurricane Irene made landfall on Aug. 27 at Cape Lookout and brought hurricane-force winds of 75 mph to the Havelock area, knocking down numerous trees and tree limbs. The city contracted to have all the yard debris collected and chopped, a process that took about a month.

Irene was the first landfalling hurricane to impact the Havelock area since Hurricane Ophelia in 2005. The storm caused an estimated $6.2 million in damage in the city and left residents without power for days.

Slocum Creek overflowed its banks, flooding several homes, most in the Ketner Heights subdivision. Many homeowners are still in the recovery process months after the storm.

Irene was the lone hurricane during the 2011 tropical season to strike the United States.