The progress came after the city tested a relatively new type of fire-suppression foam patented and sold by a Virginia company, and found that it appeared to work. After viewing the test -- conducted on part of the burning pile -- officials green-lighted the foam's use on the rest of the site.

Baker offered his by-weekend's-close estimate after visiting the dump late Friday afternoon. "I would venture to say, based on my untrained eye, that about 50 percent of the pile has been extinguished," he said. "We're significantly ahead of schedule."

He cautioned that while workers would keep at it all day today, the pace of the effort will be driven by what they find as they dig deeper into the mass.

Even a Monday finish, however, would be a week ahead of the Oct. 2 estimate Baker gave the City Council as complaints about the fire mounted.

Progress can't come soon enough for angry neighbors and City Council members who've criticized the administration's handling of the problem.

"Right now, we're in a reactive mode and not a proactive mode," Councilman Eugene Brown said Friday. "We've got to put this sucker out, and that's why we're talking to people like that group out of Virginia. The longer it goes on, the more embarrassing it is to the city."

Meanwhile, city officials announced they will consider -- on a case-by-case basis -- footing the bill for any dump neighbors who for health reasons have been forced to find temporary quarters in a motel or elsewhere.

The neighborhoods affected by the offer are those along Glenn Road from East Club Boulevard north 2¼ miles to Jeffries Road, plus the Crown Pointe and Glenstone subdivisions.

Neighbors of the dump have complained about the smoke, and at least a few have said it exacerbated health problems they'd already been having. City officials have advised residents in the affected neighborhoods to stay indoors, and on Friday added that any experiencing health problems should consult a doctor and leave if necessary.

The company that supplies the foam, Pyrocool Technologies, contacted city officials after learning of published accounts of the fire. City officials were initially skeptical, but were willing to give the foam a try after Fire Chief Bruce Pagan checked the firm's references and company representatives promised that the city wouldn't have to pay if the product didn't work.

The test went well enough that officials didn't hesitate about giving their OK to the foam's use -- or about paying Pyrocool's estimated $37,000 bill.

"The cost is being justified because of the speed, so we won't inconvenience the citizens that much longer," Solid Waste Management Director Donald Long said.

Long added that the bill for the foam would offset at least some of the bills he was counting on having to pay Thursday when he told the City Council Thursday that the fire-suppression effort would cost his department about $80,000.

So far, Long is expecting to absorb the expense within his department's $20.8 million budget for fiscal 2006-07. Operating the yard-waste dump was only supposed to take $302,050 of that.

At the site Friday afternoon, workers continued to use earthmoving equipment to expose burning debris. The new wrinkle was that instead of dousing it with water, city firefighters instead channeled water carried to the site by tanker trucks into a pair of holding tanks.

Workers added Pyrocool's product to the water as it sat in the tanks, and a Durham Fire Department truck in turn pumped the mixture to the pile.

Firefighters were pleased. "It looks a lot better than it did earlier this morning," Fire Department Battalion Chief T.W. Reams said. "The foam is working. The way they're going at it now, another two or three days and we should have it under control."

Baker said he's not sure either how well-known Pyrocool's product is in the firefighting trade, or whether it would have allowed the city to attack the fire sooner. The blaze erupted on Sept. 10 and, until Tuesday, officials concentrated on making sure it didn't spread rather than on putting it out.