Causes, Types and Consequences of Municipal Waste Landfill Fires—Literature Review

The amount of municipal waste produced worldwide has seen a significant increase in recent years. The need to store waste is a significant problem in the context of environmental threats and spatial development. Due to the fact that the easiest way to reduce the amount of waste is to incinerate it, and despite the fact that waste incineration plants have existed since the late 1800s, the amount of illegal waste burning and landfills has also increased. Subsurface landfill fires are particularly dangerous, as they can affect the structure of the landfill. Methane also plays an important role in fires as it is flammable and contributes to the spread of fire. In addition, the leachate from incinerated waste is much more dangerous than the leachate from waste in its natural state. The effluents from incinerated waste include heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants, as well as sulphates, chlorides, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Other pollutants also end up in the atmosphere. The aim of this article is to present the problem of landfill fires and their impact on air, soil, and water, based on a review of the selected documented fires as well as indicators of fires in the areas in which the authors of this article conducted their research. The article presents an overview of methods and tests, such as dynamic leaching tests, monitoring tests, and lysimetric tests, all of which can be implemented to prevent fires as well as for research purposes after a fire has occurred, so that this article can be utilitarian not only for researchers, but also for decision makers.