A very large pile of garbage at the Devlin Transfer Station in south county ignited early Thursday morning, setting off one of the ceiling sprinklers, Napa County Fire Battalion Chief Dave Shew said.

“It was a pretty big pile of garbage, but a relatively small fire. Something in the pile got hot and started the whole thing burning,” Shew said. “The sprinkler set off the fire alarm, which brought us.”

Shew said the fire was easy to contain, but filled the large building with smoke. We poured water on the fire for well over an hour. Then we used front loaders to spread out the burned garbage to make sure the fire was out.”

Shew said because of the early morning hour, there were only a couple of employees in the building when the fire broke out.