LEWISTON — The hundreds of American flags found in the Lewiston landfill Wednesday will be properly disposed of during a special burning at the city’s Public Works pit at 10 a.m. on Friday.

Roger Fillion, past commander of American Legion Post 22, said he received about 14 calls at 7 a.m. Thursday, the day a story about the flags being found at the dump appeared in the Sun Journal.

“You would not believe the calls I got (Thursday) morning,” Fillion said. “People were disgusted about that, you know.”

He got in touch with Dick Morin of the Lewiston Public Works Department and they immediately arranged the flag-burning.

“We’re going to burn them all,” Fillion said. “The ones they collected there and didn’t know what to do with them, they called me up and I told them to hang on. We’re going to have something going tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. and we will take care of them.”

The American Legion and other veterans groups often collect old flags before arranging a ceremonial disposal, Fillion said.

“We weren’t planning on (holding a burning on Friday), but we’re going to do it now, let me tell you,” he said. “We’ve got all kinds of flags, hundreds and hundreds that we’ve been collecting from different burial grounds and they are all at the city pit. What we are going to be doing is digging a hole, completely burning them and burying the whole thing in the city pit.”

In the past, a city worker who was also a veteran helped make sure all of the flags the city collected were disposed of properly, said Mike Bernier, a district supervisor at the Lewiston Public Works Department. But that worker came down with an illness, Bernier said.

The hundreds of small American flags discovered Wednesday at the landfill by Rick Rodrigue have been gathered up and will be burned on Friday morning with the other flags that have accumulated with the city and Fillion’s Legion post over recent years.

Though no one has come forward to confess trashing the flags, they were likely collected from one or more local cemeteries by a volunteer cleaning up after Memorial Day.

“The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning,” according to the U.S. Flag code.

Fillion said he’s just doing the right thing in working with city officials to conduct a proper burning.

“I’m doing the best I can to get rid of the flags in the proper way, not just throw them in the trash, because that’s not good,” he said.

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