This article was on Yahoo News yesterday, I thought it was kind of interesting! The picture is the only one they had, but you get the idea. TROUP - Smith County officials are investigating a large illegal dump where tons of wire and thousands of insulators and resistors were uncovered by a recent wildfire near Troup. Smith County Constable Danny Smith and deputies James Lee and Don Rust say they are now looking for the electric company responsible for the 3-acre dump site. "What we have here is an electric company that either hauled this stuff in here themselves or paid to have it hauled, but either way it is illegal," Lee said. The dump was discovered three weeks ago when landowner Jim Bob Arterberry started a small trash fire that quickly consumed 25 acres of property and had firefighters battling not only a wildfire, but toxic flames from tires and electrical supplies. Rust said he was on the scene during the fire, and that the insulators and other electrical components were exploding. "At first we thought it was gunshots," he said. "I mean, there were pops here and there and thick black smoke." The piles of wire - buried up to 20 feet deep in the soil and reaching 20 feet into the air - contained transformers, electrical meters, creosote electrical poles and other items. Arterberry said his father was a "junker" who collected junk from all over and stored it on the property, but the officials said the electrical materials wouldn't have been found on the side of the highway. "My father brought in a lot of this stuff, and when he died 10 years ago, other family members used a bulldozer to pile the stuff up," he said. Arterberry is battling prostate cancer and Smith and Lee believe there may be a link between the dump and the man's health. "This stuff has lead and other chemicals that contaminate soil and ground water and that are suspected of causing health problems," Lee said. "So it's not a far reach to link the two." Smith said he is contacting the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to conduct testing at the site. "We need soil and water samples out here, and we need help cleaning this up," he said. "This is going to take forever to get out of here." Lee said he estimated there were several hundred thousand pounds of wire used to deliver electricity to businesses and homes. "This is the wire that you see up high that carries the electricity, and some of the insulators are still connected," he said. "This is a major dump site and this stuff came from a major electric company, and whether they brought in themselves or had someone else do it, they know better. This stuff is supposed to go to special sites, not in someone's backyard." Smith said his office would continue investigating the site and gathering evidence to learn who was responsible. "We are pursuing an aggressive investigation to find out who is responsible, and we will file criminal charges and get this cleaned up," he said. Smith said he hopes TCEQ will visit the site soon and begin testing for contaminants in the area, "There's no telling what we will find out here once we get to digging, but this is going to cost a lot of money to clean up," he said.