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Firefighters from Butler Twp., Vandalia, Huber Heights and Harrison Twp. spent four hours early Thursday, July 31, fighting a smoky fire in trash piles at the Montgomery County North Transfer Station at 6589 Webster Street, Assistant Chief Steve Stein of the Butler Twp. Fire Department said.

The transfer station, the site of the county's former north incinerator, is used to process trash to separate materials that can be recycled, and it has piles of trash inside concrete buildings.

A fire started within the trash piles sometime around midnight, but the cause of the fire is not yet known, Stein said. He said automated alarms notified the township fire department that a fire had started, and a sprinkler system kept the fire from getting out of hand before firefighters arrived.

When firefighters arrived, there were no visible flames, but there was a lot of smoke. Stein said Montgomery County solid waste workers were called in and used front-end loaders to help pull debris apart so that firefighters could get to the hot spots easier.

Stein said the fire was brought under control around 4 a.m. He said the firefighters followed standard procedures and wore protective breathing gear to shield them from possible toxic fumes from the fire.