Zeljkovac Landfill Fire Burns for Eight Hours Near Leskovac

A fire broke out overnight, around 2 a.m., at the regional landfill in Zeljkovac near Leskovac. The blaze started in one of the waste cells, the sections of the landfill where trash is deposited and which are separated from the rest of the site by earthen embankments. Firefighters stayed on site for more than eight hours before the fire was brought under control. Counting from the moment it was reported, crews remained at the landfill well into the morning.

According to the morning update, 18 firefighters from Leskovac were deployed to the landfill. Alongside them, workers from Por Verner Veber, the company known by its abbreviation PWW, which manages the Zeljkovac landfill, took part in the firefighting effort. Staff and equipment from the public utility company in Grdelica also joined in, as did residents of nearby villages who came to help. The landfill serves as the regional site for municipal waste from Leskovac and surrounding municipalities.

Crews fought the flames with heavy machinery and earth. Firefighters and workers hauled in soil to bury the hotspots, while heavy equipment spread out the waste to keep the fire from spreading further across the surface of the cell. No injuries have been reported so far.

Fire kept from reaching Bunibrod and Guberevac

The biggest risk was not only the fire inside the landfill itself, but the possibility it could spread onto the surrounding land. Bunibrod and Guberevac are villages near the Zeljkovac landfill, and the fields and pastures around them were most at risk if the flames had spread. PWW said that danger has been averted.

“We stopped the fire from spreading into the fields of the villages of Bunibrod and Guberevac,” PWW, the company that manages the landfill, said.

According to PWW, the fire never crossed the boundaries of the landfill and did not reach farmland or homes in either village.

The Leskovac fire broke out on a night when the wildfire situation in Serbia, according to officials, still required a heavy presence of crews on the ground. Luka Causic, head of the Emergency Situations Sector, appeared on RTS’s evening news program to give an update on the current state of affairs.

“There are currently 12 active fires in Serbia,” Causic said, adding that for the first time, satellites are not detecting any hotspots in the Delibatska Pescara area.

He warned, however, that strong winds of up to 90 kilometers per hour are expected over the weekend, which could reignite fires in areas that have not yet been fully extinguished.

According to the same report, the situation is improving at the fire on Mount Stolovi, where the spread has been stopped on three sides, while it remains critical at the foot of Cikeri due to inaccessible terrain and strong winds. A fire that broke out on Thursday between Kraljevo and Lucani, burning around 15 hectares of low vegetation and brush, has since been brought under control. The fire near Lukovo in the Vranje municipality is now in its sixth day; homes there have been protected, but firefighting crews remain on standby.

By morning, cleanup work at the Zeljkovac landfill was nearing completion. Crews continued cooling the remaining hotspots in the cell where the fire had burned, while most of the blaze had already been contained and extinguished. No official statement has yet been issued on the cause of the fire or on the extent of any material damage.