Dumped trailer carrying 40 tonnes of waste catches fire

A trailer carrying 40 tonnes of construction and household waste has caught fire, two weeks after it was found illegally dumped beside the A41 in Shropshire.

The fire broke out just before midnight on Sunday and the road between Tern Hill and Forton was closed while firefighters dealt with the incident.

Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service said its crews had to work in "challenging conditions due to the significant amount of smoke being produced and the potential instability of the trailer".

Crews had to cut away the side wall to gain better access and found the trailer was "tightly packed with waste from front to back and from floor to roof," it added.

"Due to the tonnes of waste inside the trailer, and the way in which it had been compacted together, fully extinguishing the fire became a prolonged operation," the fire service said.

A fire investigation into the cause of the blaze is underway, but West Mercia Police said it did not appear to be arson.

Firefighters from Market Drayton, Newport, Wellington and Telford were involved in putting the fire out.

The fire service said because of the way the lorry was tightly packed, crews had to dig into the waste to find the hotspots.

Telford and Wrekin council appealed for information about the dumped lorry last week and said it was renewing that appeal.

It said it believed the trailer was first seen travelling west towards Newport on 5 September.

It also said the company whose name and logo appear on the trailer, Grocontinental, is not connected to this incident.

The company sold it "many years ago" and has been eliminated from enquiries, the authority explained.

This is not the first instance of abandoned vehicles on the same road.

The BBC has previously reported on a number of trailers full of waste being left on the A41 and A53.

Following similar discoveries in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and Staffordshire in 2024, the Environment Agency speculated that the incidents could be related to organised crime, however this has not been confirmed in this case.

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