Freight trains carrying hazardous materials routinely barrel through the Canadian city of London, Ontario. They are typically not engulfed in flames and trailing massive columns of thick smoke. However, the city witnessed one such glowing aberration Sunday night.
According to the London Fire Department, old wooden railway ties inside five train cars caught fire, transforming a Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railway train into a rolling inferno. Officials indicated they will “treat everything as arson until proven otherwise.”
Several onlookers captured video of the CPKCR train blaze past homes, trees, and other potential kindling.
The train was ultimately brought to a stop around 10:49 p.m. in a residential area near Richmond Street and Pall Mall Street.
Officials
urged nearby residents to remain indoors and to shut their windows over fears of smoke inhalation while multiple fire crews worked diligently to extinguish the flames. It took fire crews and Canadian Pacific Railway personnel roughly two hours to bring the fire under control.
The torched train section was taken to a rail yard where firefighters could put out the remaining smoldering material.
The LFD lauded the “excellent job by fire crews to contain this fire,” adding, “It was a very efficient knockdown of a large fire and great work by CPR train crew who disconnected cars.”
While officials indicated there were no “dangerous goods” inside the affected train cars, state media
confirmed the train was nevertheless pulling hazardous materials. LFD Chief Colin Shewell indicated that the hazmat cars were successfully separated and moved away from the fires.
LFD
noted on X that “thanks to multiple 911 callers that advised our Communication Operations of an eastbound train on fire going over Oxford St. [w]e were able to get on scene & contain the fire in the downtown area very quickly with limited damage and no injuries.”
The damage did an estimated $25,000 in damage to the rail cars and $10,00 to a nearby building.
“The incident remains under investigation. We thank the London first responders for their effective response to the fire last night.” CPKCR spokesman Terry Cunha said in a statement.
Malcolm Cairns, a former CPR worker, told state media, “The Transportation Safety Board [TSB] will have their review of this incident and they will go into great depth, taking witness statements and looking at all the evidence, and eventually you’ll know what caused it and whether the rules were obeyed.”
“We will treat everything as arson until proven otherwise,” said LFD Chief Shewell. “These were scrap railway ties, so there’s really no dollar value on them. They were actually destined to be destroyed.”
The Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs
shared the following unanswered questions:
- “When did the train crew notice the fire on board and why didn’t they call 911?”
- “Why did the train stop where it did, in the middle of a residential neighborhood just west of a shunting yard?”
- “How did the railway ties, coated in flammable wood preservative creosote, catch fire?”
- “Did the fire spread from one car to the others, or did all five catch fire at once?”
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!