Fire on the street

As I was headed to the bus stop the other day, I smelled something like burning plastic.  As I approached the bus stop, I realized there was smoke pouring out of the trashcan by the stop.  A few people were standing at the stop, no one was even looking at the trashcan fire.  Since it was a solid metal can on the middle of a concrete sidewalk, I decided there was no reason to be concerned.  (It was -11 C and I was tempted to move closer for the heat, but the smell was pretty noxious!)  The stick-on advertisement on the side of the trash can was charred from the heat.  I realized over the next couple of days that many trashcans around the city had the same black charring on them - must be rather common to have trashcans on fire here.