Landfill catches fire in Novorossiysk

A fire at a landfill in Novorossiysk is accompanied by heavy smoke, and gusts of wind are making it difficult to fight the fire, the city mayor reported.

As "Kavkazsky Uzel" wrote, fires regularly occur at the landfill near Mount Shchelba in Novorossiysk, causing city residents to complain of acrid smoke. City residents have repeatedly called for the landfill to be closed, but a tender for its reconstruction was announced in the spring, and the landfill's operating period was extended by two years. Social media users were outraged by plans to reconstruct the landfill. Another fire in the spring of 2025 lasted more than a month, from March 13 to April 17, after which Rosprirodnadzor initiated an administrative case against the owner of the landfill. By the end of 2025, two new waste disposal sites will be built at the solid municipal waste landfill in Novorossiysk , since the current capacity of the landfill has been exhausted, the governor announced on August 1.

Information about a fire at a garbage dump was received early in the morning. Novorossiysk forestry is on duty at the border of the dump with the forest area. The estimated area of the fire is 900 square meters, Novorossiysk Mayor Andrey Kravchenko reported today.

"There are 33 people working on the scene. Special equipment has been brought in: six tankers, nine water trucks, 10 dump trucks, two bulldozers, and one excavator. The Novorossiysk garrison and neighboring municipalities are assisting in extinguishing the fire - Anapa and Gelendzhik have sent tankers. The work is significantly complicated by gusts of wind and heavy smoke. At the moment, the fire has been localized at 900 square meters, the spread of fire has been stopped. The main task is to eliminate the intense combustion. Water is being poured," he reported on his Telegram channel.

The landfill in the village of Borisovka was organized in 2013, it is the only legalized site for the disposal of waste from Novorossiysk and Gelendzhik. The capacity of the facility is 160 thousand tons of waste per year, however, according to the territorial scheme for handling solid municipal waste, about 230 thousand tons of waste are generated annually in Novorossiysk and Gelendzhik. In fact, the landfill accepts a significantly larger volume of garbage, and under such conditions, the landfill has "exhausted itself" ahead of schedule, said the head of the working group on ecology at the Council for the Development of Civil Society under the Governor of Kuban, Yevgeny Vitishko, in January 2024.