Nov. 26—After a large fire at North Augusta's Material Recovery Facility, the City of Aiken Public Services announced Friday it will begin picking up both garbage and recycling in the same waste trucks and disposing of all waste at the Three Rivers Landfill.

North Augusta's Material Recovery Facility processes the City of Aiken's recycling.

"We are a client of North Augusta, so they will need to determine their timetable for what they need to do," said Aiken City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh. "In the interim, we don't have another alternative, so we will be commingling recyclables with garbage for disposal with the Three Rivers Landfill."

Bedenbaugh said it is unclear when the facility will be back up and running.

"I will know more on Monday as to how long it'll take them to recover," he said.

According to City Officials with the Materials Recovery and Recycling Facility, residential trash collection services in North Augusta will continue as normal without interruption.

The fire

Multiple fire departments responded to a structure fire at the City of North Augusta Operations Facility on Thursday evening.

Multiple ladder trucks arrived on scene, and there were over a dozen first responder vehicles.

Lt. Tim Thornton with the North Augusta Department of Public Safety said the fire was likely caused by a spontaneous combustion within the recycled trash.

However, the cause of the fire is still under investigation. Thornton confirmed the facility was closed for Thanksgiving.

There were no confirmed injuries and the fire has been put out, according to the North Augusta Department of Public Safety.

"Public Safety has been monitoring the scene throughout the night and periodically during the day to extinguish any flare up hot spots," Thornton said. "A true evaluation of any damage will not occur until Monday at the earliest."

The North Augusta Department of Public Safety said they would like to recognize all of the various personnel from their respective organizations who responded to the scene to help.

"Their sacrifices of time with their families on Thanksgiving did not go unnoticed or under appreciated," Thornton said.