Miami-Dade Sues Reworld for $750M Over Doral Incinerator Fire

Miami-Dade County has sued Reworld Dade LLC and its parent, Reworld Holding Corp., for more than $750 million over the February 2023 fire that destroyed the county’s Doral resource-recovery plant. The suit lands while the county still has no permanent site for a replacement.

Why it matters

The complaint alleges Reworld failed to address known fire safety deficiencies despite years of documented warnings. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue issued six notices of violation between October 2019 and September 2022, according to the county’s account. Reworld was paid about $60 million a year to operate and maintain the county-owned plant.

Florida Politics reports the 67-page filing says employees closed valves feeding sprinklers around the conveyor where the fire began, and that one system stayed shut for about a year. Reworld rejected the county’s account of its performance in a November 2025 letter, blaming the county for not funding upgrades at the aging plant. The company had no response in Miami Today’s report. The county asked for a jury trial.

For South Florida developers, the suit reopens the question of who pays for the loss and how fast the county can move on a successor plant.

The numbers

The plant sat on 160 acres in Doral and handled nearly 3,000 tons of waste a day, generating up to 77 megawatts. The county’s replacement estimate is $3.158 billion, more than four times the damages claim. Three years after the fire, no permanent replacement site has been chosen, and the county is moving waste to landfills and by train to sites north in Florida.

Those costs continue while the site fight runs. Our earlier reporting on the Doral site fee standoff covers the land side of the same dispute.

What’s next

Watch three things. First, Reworld’s formal answer, which will show whether it argues the county underfunded the plant. Second, whether any recovery is credited toward the $3.158 billion replacement, which sets how much the county must borrow. Third, whether a site is finally named for the Doral corridor, where 160 acres of industrial land remain tied up. Any award would take years, so the capital plan cannot count on it.