How do you stop an underground fire that covers 25 acres at a depth of up to 100 feet? Officials in one Alabama county are trying to figure that out.

St. Clair County officials say they’re evaluating bids from multiple contractors to put out a massive underground fire at a landfill just north of Birmingham and hope to make a recommendation to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey’s office by the end of the week on what steps to take.

St. Clair County Commission Chairman Stan Bateman said in a regular commission meeting Tuesday in Ashville that he believes the state will ultimately make the decision about which bid to accept to put out the fire, using information sent by the county.

“We don’t think the county is going to be the one selecting the company,” Batemon said. “We think it’ll be selected by somebody either on the state or the federal level to put this fire out.”

But they will provide recommendations. County Engineer Dan Dahlke is evaluating five or six bids that have already been received, and said he is waiting on at least one more before submitting multiple bids to the state.

Dahlke and Batemon said that only companies that have experience dealing with this type of fire will be considered.

“I want to feel confident about every [option] that we send up there,” Dahlke said. “I’m not going to say I’m qualified to make the decision on which one is the best, but I want to feel comfortable with everything that we send.”

The fire has been burning for more than six weeks at the Environmental Landfill, Inc. facility, located in St. Clair County between the Birmingham suburbs of Moody and Trussville.

The fire, first reported Nov. 25, has been blanketing much of the area with smoke and generating health concerns among residents in that part of the state. The smell of smoke from the fire can frequently be detected in Birmingham, about 15 miles away.

The landfill that is burning is only legally allowed to accept “green waste,” such as fallen trees, leaves and other vegetation. As such, it is not subject to the same rules and regulations as other landfills. However, residents and inspectors from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management have reported finding tires, construction materials and other unauthorized wastes on the property.

The fire is burning mostly underground at what is believed to be a massive pile of dead and decaying trees covered with dirt, although it’s unclear if there is any other unauthorized waste covered along with the trees. Seeps and cracks in the dirt spew grey smoke out into the surrounding area.

The county declared a state of emergency on Jan. 3 to begin accepting bids for contractors to extinguish the blaze.

Dahlke said most of the bids estimated that it would take around 30 days to get the smoke under control.

Dahlke said some of the early bidders had planned to put out the fire by encapsulation or covering the burning area with dirt.

But with the fire being so large and presenting the risk of cave-ins as more of the pile turns into ash, Dahlke said that the contractors planning to use that option had withdrawn their bids, concluding that it could not be accomplished safely.

The most likely course of action now is to pump a mixture of chemical fire fighting foams and water into the burning areas, with some excavation being necessary to access the areas where the fire is burning.

“There is a wetting agent, most people call it a foam, that basically every one of them are looking at,” Dalhke said.

Many firefighting foams historically used synthetic fluorinated chemicals known as PFAS that are known to have health risks, but Dahlke said he believes the options being presented are all non-fluorinated chemicals.

He said the bids also include taking precautions to prevent the chemicals used from entering nearby waterways like Big Black Creek, a Cahaba River tributary.

Batemon did not share a new cost estimate of the project but said that he was optimistic that the job might cost less than the $2-3 million estimate that has been floated in recent weeks.

He said the county had the money to pay the cost itself but felt that they had legal obligations to involve the state and federal authorities.

“There are federal and state entities that are involved in this so that we can’t just go out there and put this fire out,” he said. “If we hired one of these contractors today and went out there, we’re probably going to be interceded by a federal or a state agency.”

At the commission meeting, county attorney James Hill suggested that the commission provide its recommendations to the state as soon as possible, rather than waiting for the next commission meeting in two weeks. The motion passed, and Batemon and Dahlke both said their goal was to deliver a package of recommendations this week.

We’ll have more details on the Moody landfill fire and the efforts to extinguish it as they become available.