A garbage truck was forced to dump its load after catching fire in Cliftleigh on Tuesday morning.
Fire crews were called to the scene, where the waste had been offloaded onto the road.
A Cessnock Council backhoe assisted the efforts by breaking up the waste pile allowing for the fire fighters to completely extinguish the blaze.
It follows a spate of garbage truck fires across the Hunter in recent months, including at Merewether, Mayfield, Swansea and Hamilton as a result of batteries, which have been thrown away, sparking inside.