A blaze that destroyed four garbage trucks on Hobart's eastern shore is being treated as deliberate, police say.
Fire crews were called to AussieWaste at Mornington about 5:00am on Wednesday.
They found one truck fully engulfed, and three more smouldering.
Fire crews had to cut their way into the back of the burning truck to remove rubbish that was fuelling the fire.
The trucks were parked about a metre apart, and made up the company's entire southern fleet.
The company holds the contract to pick up recyclable rubbish for Kingborough Council, south of Hobart, and was due to do the waste run today.
A company spokesman said they were unable to pick up the recycling this morning, but were working on finding replacement trucks.
It has another depot in Launceston, and contracts with northern councils are unaffected.
Tasmania Fire Service investigator Matt Lowe said it was not the first time he had been called to a garbage truck blaze.
"Sometimes you find that people have thrown out ash from a fire and it starts from that," he said.
But he said it was the first time he had been called to a blaze where four trucks had been destroyed at once.
Detectives and fire investigators remain on the scene, and are treating the blaze as suspicious.
The damage bill for the trucks is estimated as $500,000.
The company would not comment on possible flow on costs to its business.
