Burning truck dumps load of trash at Tampa church

TAMPA (FOX 13) - A Catholic church in South Tampa has a giant mess to clean up after a passing City of Tampa trash truck caught fire this morning and was forced to dump its load in their parking lot.

The view from SkyFOX showed what appeared to be a truckload's worth of garbage on the property of the church, which also houses a large private school. The trash appeared to be spread over the area of about 20 parking spaces.

Father Len Plazewski told FOX 13's Alcides Segui that a city trash truck had caught fire and pulled into the lot, where firefighters extinguished the load.  

"It woke me up," he explained.  "I heard the noise about quarter after 6, looked out to the parking lot and saw this big fire."

After reviewing the church's security footage, Father Plazewski figured out what had happened.

"The trash caught on fire across the street, so they drove across the street, dumped it in our lot, and then it really got big, then the fire department came and put it out."

Now the mess has to be cleaned up, but city officials are on scene to manage that process.

Despite the early -- and stinky -- wake-up call, Father Plazewski seemed to be taking the messy surprise in stride.

"Probably no worse than politics today," he chuckled.