A garbage truck unloads trash onto North Druid Hills road after the contents of the truck caught fire on Wednesday afternoon, May 25. Photo by Dan Whisenhunt

A garbage truck caught fire along North Druid Hills road on the afternoon of May 25, bringing traffic to a halt as the sanitation workers emptied the truck’s flaming contents onto the street.

County firefighters then doused the burning trash as people watched from the parking lot of the Publix at Shamrock Plaza.

Capt. Eric Jackson, spokesperson for the DeKalb County Fire Rescue Department, said no one was injured.

“If we have a fire inside of a dump truck, even though it’s a closed system, it’s hard to make sure we extinguish a fire inside of a dump truck,” Jackson said. “So what I’ve seen … done before is them to dump the trash out, that way – nasty as it is – we can sift through it and hit it. We can put eyes on it and see what the hot spots are and actually extinguish it.”

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