The smell of smoke lingered over eastern Lawrence and the downtown area this morning following an overnight fire at the city’s brush drop-off site at 1420 E. Eighth St.

The facility normally is open to the public on Saturdays, but it will be closed this Saturday because of the fire, city officials said. It will reopen Oct. 20.

Lawrence firefighters responded to the fire at 12:45 a.m. and remained on the scene until 7:30 a.m. The cause of the fire is undetermined, Division Chief Bill Stark, but he noted that brush and mulch fires can start from spontaneous combustion.

“It was a pretty big fire,” Stark said. “We ended up hooking up to a hydrant and setting up an aerial device, and the city had a couple of front-end loaders in there working to pull it apart so we could get to it.”