Due to the large amount of smoke produced by a landfill fire in Lorton overnight, Fairfax County hazardous material teams conducted atmospheric monitoring this afternoon and found all reading within normal levels.
Crews were called to the landfill in the 9900 block of Richmond Highway about 11 p.m. Monday and arrived to find a "large volume of fire," Fairfax County fire and rescue said on Twitter.
Fire crews remained on the scene early Tuesday with the fire declared under control as of 5:45 a.m.
UPDATE 9900 Richmond Hwy: The fire is under control. The landfill is mainly logs & brush. Due to the amount of smoke generated, HazMat units conducted atmospheric monitoring. All readings are within normal levels. Crews to remain on scene to assist w/ extinguishment efforts. pic.twitter.com/0nDFtDB0nM
— Fairfax County Fire/Rescue (@ffxfirerescue) June 6, 2023
The fire was still smoldering Tuesday afternoon and smoke was still visible through the area, especially along U.S. 1 and Interstate 95. The landfill contains mostly logs and brush, fire officials said.
There were no injuries and the cause of the fire is under investigation.
Stay with InsideNoVa.com for the latest updates.
(18) comments
Interesting cover story. I wonder what evidence the feds were burning.
Does anyone know where Director Wray has been in the last 24 hours? I think you're on to something
Lorton is prime real estate. We should not have any landfills in NoVA. They are better situated on Southwest Virginia where the land is cheap and unproductive. Landfills are a good use of abandoned/unused farmland.
Fuel costs are too high to truck garbage long distance unless absolutely necessary. Better to burn it and produce power, if you can cleanly.
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I agree for once.
Errrrrrrrrrr,
It's sustainable to have landfills in densely populated areas. And it's also sustainable to have landfills in rural areas like you say, but that represent a larger region. Finally, it's better to have landfills than to pollute the streams, lakes, and rivers.
It sounds like you're about "transformation" of the suburbs. Plus, I stumbled across a small landfill, more so a fire pit, and noticed it was all charred MAGA merchandise. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?
[batman]
[thumbup]
Everything is prime real estate when you look back retrospectively. At some point you have to build a city. The need for the landfill to exist is just as much about trash as it is about construction needs.
Southwest Virginia will never become prime real estate. Not during my lifetime or my children's lifetime. It will continue to shrink in population like it has for the past 30 years.
I am not so sure. The Chinese certainly seem interested in buying farmland. So does Bill Gates. Agricultural land prices are rising. Future generations will depend on it.
I realize you are just trying to get a rise out of people with your ignorant comments. Please tell me where this abandoned farmland is. If there is abandoned farmland in Virginia that means it should have never been farmed in the first place. It was most likely abandoned decades ago by its Democratic owners.
Productive farmland is not going down in value. it is going up, even in Appalachia. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/land-use-land-value-tenure/farmland-value/
Agriculture is the 3rd leading industry in Virginia behind the service industry with its low paying jobs and technology with its ugliness. It is ahead of manufacturing, minerals (including oil and gas), medical, education, etc.
Would the Virginian agricultural industry collapse if illegal immigrants were subjected to the same laws passed in Florida?
https://www.vpm.org/news/2022-11-23/migrant-workers-reveal-their-virginia-farming-experiences
Probably not, because Uncle Sam would probably pump more money into paying people not to farm. But thanks for pointing out how illegal labor is the backbone of successful agriculture in America today. The future is Big Agriculture staffed by foreign guest workers. I don't see that changing.
Ignorant? Here are the facts. There were nearly 100,000 farms in Virginia a generation ago, now there are less than half that many. Agriculture only employs about 350,000 people out of over 4 million VA workers (about 8%). Medical careers alone is 16% of jobs in VA. The leading industries in VA ranked by size are Services (the backbone of the US economy today which includes high paying healthcare and federal consulting both big in NoVA), Technology, followed by Agriculture/Forestry/Fishing/mining as a DISTANT third. The top crop is cancer causing tobacco and the profitable agriculture is in Vineyards mostly run by well to do people who stopped voting GOP. But if you love farming so much why are you in NoVA? Go buy some of that Appalachian land (all land has been going up in price, inflation does that) and put up a bare concrete block house to fit into the neighborhood.
Yes, you are ignorant. Tobacco is not even a top 10 agricultural product in Virginia: https://www.vdacs.virginia.gov/agriculture-top20.shtml
Farmers are not paid to not farm in Virginia. Some farmers do get a break on property taxes by putting some of their land in an agricultural easement. There are also conservation programs supported by Democrats and Republicans alike that provided cost share to put some highly erodible land and wetlands in conservation easements. These easements may be perpetual or be for certain periods, like 20 years. I don't agree with that program but Biden wants to expand it. But the government no longer pays people not to farm just to keep production down.
You seem overly condescending to anything rural. Were you abused by a perverted farmworker as a child?
@ Paul
Tobacco should be prominent, as it once was. It should be raised and harvested responsibly.and sustainably. The tobacco leaf has medical properties, this is a fact. (Parkinson's disease research.) Tobacco dust is also a prominent organic pesticide, because many bugs are repelled by nicotine but is banned as a pesticide by our government in place of cancer causing glyphosate and other man-made chemicals by big chem.
The tobacco companies ruined the tobacco industry by adding copious amounts of chemicals and heavy metals to their final product. There is only one major brand, and very few small ones that harvest addictive free tobacco leaf and organic farming tobacco leaf.
The hydrocarbons and the smoke are the carcinogens, and adding anything more to that will accelerate disease, and that's exaxtky what tobacco companies did.
Save the tobacco leaf.
Build back better.
Youngkinz' tobacco friendly Va!
Ignorant? Hardly. I am the one who understands the difference between revenues and PROFITS. Tobacco is profitable, unlike much of what is listed higher up on your list. Most farmers barely break even. Especially in Virginia which lacks the economy of scale to make agriculture profitable. The Conservation Reserve Program pays farmers not to farm. Virginia is NOT exempt. There are currently 32,000 acres here in VA under the program. Removing farmland in America is one of the ways we prop up an unprofitable industry. The solution is consolidation under Big Business which uses guest worker labor. That was the conclusion of several studies at Kansas State University. I understand rural America is the source of most of our problems, NOT inner city America. But conservatives ignore this because rural America is now their base. Its time conservatives admit they owe their very existence to the productive, liberal metro areas they so resent. It's clear you don't work in a field that relies on data and data analytics. Leave the opinions to us pros. And if you don't like wealthy, progressive areas, feel free to move.
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