A WARNING has been issued for people to take care over how they dispose of hot embers after three fires at Buckinghamshire Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) in less than a week.

The HWRC at Langley, in Langley Park Road, was forced to close twice in the space of a four days after fires broke out and the Chesham HWRC also had to shut temporarily for the same reason.

The fires are believed to have been caused by householders placing hot ash in the waste containers.

Cllr Lesley Clarke, Buckinghamshire County Council cabinet member for planning and the environment, said: “Our staff were stunned by the fact that these three fires followed on so closely to each other, and we are worried that this could be repeated if people don’t take care when they are disposing of their waste.

“The problem is that embers, often concealed in what appears to be cold ashes, can remain hot enough to rekindle a fire for several days - especially when mixed with other combustible materials.” The first Langley HWRC fire was on Friday, March 6 and the centre was closed from noon for about three hours. Then, on Monday last week (9/3), the same thing happened at around 4.30pm and the centre had to close early. On Wednesday. March 11, the Chesham site was closed for half an hour due to a fire.

Firefighters attended all of the fires, which caused about £2,000 of damage to the containers as they had to be repaired or replaced. On the first and third occasions, the fires were only discovered after the waste had been left in the containers. At the second incident at Langley, site staff challenged a man – but it was too late to stop a fire breaking out.