Our Fire Procedures
Do Shred Trucks Catch on Fire?
While it’s very uncommon, shred truck fires can happen. Any large piece of shredding, compacting, or destruction equipment carries this risk. Though the event is unlikely, it’s best to have a procedure in-place for handling such emergencies.
Why do Shred Truck fires happen, and what can I do to help prevent them?
There are several reasons why an industrial shredder could catch fire. From our experience, fires occur primarily due to non-paper materials being mixed in with the paper collected for shredding. This is also the most common reason for such incidents across the shredding industry. If you have any doubts about whether certain items can be included with your shred material, please contact us before adding them to your collection bin. As a reminder, only the following items are acceptable:
- Office paper
- File folders
- Spiral-bound notebooks
- Notepads
- Folders
- Newsprint and magazines
- Soft-bound publications less than 2” thick
- Small fasteners such as staples, paper clips, and rubber bands in normal quantities
What does CI Information Management do in the case of a Shred Truck Fire?
Safety First
Our top priority is always the safety of our staff and any involved individuals. In case of a fire, our first steps are to halt operations or travel as soon as it’s safe, identify the source of smoke, move to a safe distance, and notify the local fire department. Our staff then prioritizes keeping everyone at a safe distance until the fire department arrives and assesses the scene. They follow the fire department’s direction to ensure the fire is contained and remain in contact with our shred office throughout the process.
Document Security
Since all documents are shredded on-site, any paper material collected throughout the day is already destroyed. However, if a fire occurs while shredding at a customer location and unshredded paper material remains, it will be shredded if safe to do so or returned to the customer for shredding at a later date. Hard drives and other media are securely brought to our facility for destruction, maintaining the chain of custody throughout.
Final Disposition of Destroyed Materials
Our standard procedure is to offload shredded materials to a recycling center for pulping and recycling. However, in the event of a fire, the fire department’s instructions dictate the actions taken to control the situation. Material may be offloaded at the nearest safe location, which may not always be a recycling center. Any material offloaded outside a suitable facility is cleaned up and transported to an appropriate facility, which could be a recycling center or a landfill.
Truck Safety and Customer Follow-up
All trucks involved in a fire undergo thorough inspection for damage, with any necessary repairs conducted by certified technicians. After repairs and testing, trucks are returned to service, with affected trucks initially kept on routes closer to our facility as an additional precaution. Additionally, we notify customers serviced on the day of the fire to remind them of acceptable materials for shredding and ensure they understand our fire procedures, aiming to prevent future incidents through awareness and education.
If you have any questions about our processes, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Thank you for your cooperation in ensuring only approved materials are included with your documents, helping us avoid such situations.