NEW HARTFORD, N.Y. — Folks out running errands got more than they bargained for Wednesday morning when a garbage truck suddenly turned into a fire scene right in a Walgreens parking lot.

This all went down just after 8:30 a.m. on Commercial Drive.

According to New York Mills Fire Chief Richard Ulinski, the Syracuse Haulers truck had just picked up two local loads and was heading down Henderson Street when the driver noticed something wasn’t right. Using a camera mounted on the truck, he spotted smoke coming from the back bin.

Now here’s where quick thinking made all the difference.

Instead of pushing on and risking something worse, the driver pulled over into a safe area near Walgreens and dumped the entire load right there in the parking lot.

Within moments, that pile of trash was burning.

Emergency crews responded and got the situation under control before it spread further.

The good news in all of this — nobody was hurt.

But here’s the part that’s got people talking.

Ulinski says fires like this are tough to pin down, and right now, the cause is listed as unknown.

And if you’ve been paying attention, this ain’t some one-off situation. Garbage truck fires have been popping up more often, and a lot of times it comes down to what’s getting thrown away. Batteries, chemicals, hot materials — all it takes is one wrong item and you’ve got a rolling fire hazard going down the road.

So now the question becomes… what was in that load?

Because something in there lit up fast.

We’ll keep an eye on this and update if anything new comes out.