A City of Brownwood sanitation truck was running its route Monday afternoon when something in the garbage caught fire.  Crews had to dump the load of burning trash in an open area of Thomason Park.

The Brownwood Fire Department was called to the park at Avenue C and 12th Street between 1:00 and 1:30 pm.

“Those trash trucks run $250,000 to $300,000 each and that’s one of our newer ones.  That’s how you protect your truck.  You find a place that’s open and vacant and dump the load,” said Brownwood Fire Marshal Buddy Preston.

“We’ve already got a grappling truck here to help spread this out and pick it up when we get it all put out.  There should be a front end loader arriving any minute,” Preston said.  The trash that was dumped, once free of fire, will be placed into another truck and hauled away.  The truck that had to dump the burning load will be taken to the shop to see if there is any damage.

As of 2:15 pm the front end loader had arrived to begin the cleanup process.