The "Mammoth Student Clear Out" was run by Dunedin City Council staff who have said they will review the rubbish collection project to see what they can do better next year.
Couches, clothes airers, toilet seats and even a Christmas tree were left out in piles on the streets of North Dunedin by 9am Saturday as students took the opportunity to clean out their flats.
And on Friday and Saturday nights people took the opportunity to set those piles on fire, the fire service says.
After 11 calls to rubbish fires in the campus area on Friday night, senior station officer Rob Torrance from Willowbank station in North Dunedin questioned why rubbish was being left overnight.
He would rather the rubbish was put out on the day of collection to avoid tempting people to set fire to it.
He was also concerned about the amount of rubbish, mainly couches and mattresses, left over after Saturday's collection which were "begging" to be set alight.
His fears were realised as firefighters were called out to 14 rubbish fires in the student area on Saturday night, 10 of them while at least four appliances were fighting a large house fire in Pine Hill.
Ravensbourne and Port Chalmers fire appliances were called in to help deal with fires in the student area, but they too were called to the house fire for spells.
Fire crews also had to deal with a small scrub fire on Mt Cargill, caused when a permitted Guy Fawkes bonfire caught a hedge, and an explosion in Ravensbourne that night.
Willowbank station officer Jason Hill described the weekend as "chaotic".
There had been little trouble with fireworks - the Mt Cargill fire the only related callout.
"But we were nearly caught out on Saturday night because of people playing merry hell [with the rubbish piles].
It just has the potential to be deadly.
If everyone's tied up and something else goes up in North Dunedin, and Mosgiel is the nearest available unit, there's a delay.
"And time is lives."
Collection organiser Susan Smirk said the collection had gone well and charities had benefitted from the recyclable goods collected.
Three vans and a truck collected recyclable furniture and goods from 9am to 1pm.
Students were encouraged to put their rubbish out on Saturday morning and the council could not control it being put out earlier, she said.
DCC solid waste manager Ian Featherston said "two or three" trucks collected the remaining rubbish from 10am to 6pm.
They had been going to stop at 4pm, but carried on to get as much as possible off the street.
He had witnessed people still putting rubbish out on the street at 5pm.
"We can't control that."
The council had moved the collection forward this year because many students had already finished exams.
A truck had returned to the area to pick up more furniture yesterday.
Short of having a clean-up operation three or four weeks in a row, that was as much as the council could do.
If they did not have it people just left their rubbish out anyway.
"We are damned if we do and damned if we don't," Mr Featherston said.
A de-brief would be held this week where they would look at what happened and where to go from here. debbie.porteous@odt.co.nz
