Lebanon fire officials were unable to determine the cause of a fire in a garbage truck on Aug. 11.

About 5 a.m. the driver of the Allied Waste garbage truck discovered a fire in his load and pulled into the parking lot at Hollywood Video, where he dumped it out on the pavement.

Fire Prevention Specialist Jon Davis said "fires in dump trucks are not an uncommon occurrence, [but] it is usually very hard to determine a cause just because of the sheer volume of debris that could be considered possible sources. Anything from a discarded cigarette or the mixing of two discarded chemicals that may cause an exothermic reaction to compressed debris that has begun to decompose and has enough heat within that when disturbed allows enough oxygen in for combustion to begin."

Something in the load was exploding, causing the first people at the scene to think M-80s were going off in the pile of trash.

Davis said garbage typically contains discarded aerosol bottles that may explode when heated.

Nine firefighters responded; they had the blaze under control in about 10 minutes.

They cleared the scene shortly after 5:30 a.m.

Allied Waste loaded the garbage back into a truck and brought in a sweeper to clean the parking lot.

Neither the original garbage truck nor the parking lot were damaged, Davis said. No one was injured.