Aug. 18, a trash trailer hooked up to Wiscasset Transfer Station's hopper that is "underneath inside the building" caught fire and the station crew "managed to get underneath and pull that trailer out before the fire spread through the rest of the building," Town Manager Dennis Simmons said in a selectmen's meeting that night. At one point in the incident, there was an explosion, he added. 

Simmons said no one was hurt and no equipment was damaged. 

"It did require the town crew to dump all the trash out of that trailer, which made quite a mess, as you can imagine, in the parking lot up there, so I'd like to thank Ted (Snowdon, public works director) and his crew, the transfer station crew, for being very efficient."

Simmons said, if the fire had happened when no one was there, "we probably would have lost that facility."

The station was closed the rest of the day as workers cleaned up the station, which was ready to open for normal hours the next day, he said. A town text at 2:28 p.m. Aug. 18 announced the closure as due to an emergency. 

As for people not being able to use the station, Simmons said, "I'm sorry people weren inconvenienced today."

Simmons, who along with selectmen has in recent years urged the public to be respectful toward town staff, added about the closure: "Some people were actually quite rude about this, and I say that's totally unnecessary. Just rude and nasty to town staff. It needs to come to an end. I'm just sick of it."

Vice Chair Pamela Dunning said she heard from one person who "just said that she was having a good day, giving her garbage a ride around town." That drew laughter in the meeting room. "So not everyone was rude about it," Dunning said, smiling. Simmons smiled, too.