Smoldering Mound of Garbage Doused, Dumped onto Cornishon Avenue

Thursday night smelled a little ripe at the corner of Cornishon Avenue and Descanso Drive.

Los Angeles County firefighters doused a smoldering load of garbage picked up by Athens Services, the waste collection company contracted by the city of La Cañada Flintridge, after which the company dumped the steaming haul onto Cornishon Avenue.

"We have to dump [smoking hauls] because they could ignite the truck,'' said Luis Sanchez, area supervisor for the company.

Sanchez and his team worked against the setting sun, furiously scooping shovelfuls of the strewn pile into trash bins, which got dumped back into trucks. The 6 p.m. incident prompted deputies from the to close off the portion of Cornishon just north of Descanso Drive, while the Athens crew dug into the drenched refuse, scattered in clumps down the street.

The smoking load got picked up from a house on Chevy Chase Drive, north of Descanso, Sanchez said, but supervisors directed the truck around the corner. They opted to empty the mountain of wet garbage, as tall as eight feet in some places,  onto the less-trafficked Cornishon, believing it to be safer, he said.