Department of Public Works Director David Picozzi feared the worst when he was awoken Tuesday night by a call from the Warwick Fire Department. A truck was on fire in the City Yard.

Picozzi didn’t linger. He raced from his house, expecting to hear the rumble of explosions and to see the air filled with smoke as he approached the yard on Sandy Lane.

After all, he had an idea of what to expect. Two sanitation trucks, parked in the yard caught fire in September of 2013. In April 2015 five trucks, also parked side by side, caught fire during the night. The source of the fire was an electrical problem in one vehicle.

Was another sanitation truck on fire, and would it spread to other trucks?

But Picozzi didn’t see smoke as he approached the yard. In fact, he didn’t even see a fire engine. There were all the sanitation and recycling trucks parked just as they had been left at the end of the workday. What a relief.

A false alarm?

No, upon investigation Picozzi found the source of the call. A 1999 Ford dump truck parked away from the sanitation fleet had caught fire. By the time Picozzi arrived the fire had been extinguished. He said it appeared the fire started in the engine compartment. The cause was still under investigation yesterday.