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News10.com
Posted on 03/15/2007 6:42:26 PM PDT by Lonely Bull
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A fire on a train trestle sent huge plumes of smoke over Sacramento late Thursday afternoon.
The fire burned near the American River Parkway and Highway 80, near the California Exposition and State Fair.
Smoke could be seen for miles.
The fire is about 100 yards long, according to the Sacramento Fire Department.
A fire officials said there appears to be no structures on the tracks.
Four or five engines responded to the blaze, according to fire officials.
The cause is unknown.
Stay with NBC11 and NBC11.com for more information
I just logged onto FR to see if I could find anything out about this fire... saw it from my back yard and turned on the news and they are reporting is the direction of the smoke being good news. They're talking asthma, smoke disbursement, etc., but no word on the cause or why the football-field length of track is all evenly burning. I wonder how it started?
Newscasters also reported "turn off the A/C and lock the doors..."!!! They also report there are petroluem pipelines underneath those tracks, which may be contributing to the intense burning.
Saw the fire on local news,, be careful..
The lumber used in the trestle construction have also been treated with creosote or such, which when burnt, emits a lot of nasty stuff ..
It was burning pretty good , not much they can do at this point except let it burn out,, they should be able to shut the pipelines down , that bridge is off the air for awhile, imo. quite a few tracks across too..
My guess is that UP might just completely rebuild a new trestle once the fire is out. That means the mainline could be out of service for at least two weeks.
"A fire officials said there appears to be no structures on the tracks." HUH???
Hell of a place to build a house ain't it?
a trackhouse, no doubt,, many a tract house has track running close by.. a house here would be a real shaker tho,, :-]
How active is the train traffic?
What is it used for .. passenger or freight or coal/mineral?
What major terminals does this line connect?
A trestle is somewhat isolated (I would assume) and a good spot for a green criminal to create havoc.
The trestle has about 50 trains a day passing through it, so all kinds of railroad traffic use this line, including the Amtrak Coast Starlight, California Zephyr and Capitol Corridor trains. It is part of the former Southern Pacific overland route from the San Francisco Bay Area to points east, and is also part of the Southern Pacific north-south "I-5" route. The nearest terminals to this bridge are Roseville Yard (UP's largest yard on the US West Coast) and the Sacramento Amtrak station.
In short, this line out of service will have serious effects on train traffic until the bridge is rebuilt.
Smells real bad from my house, and I'm a good ten miles away. Flaming creosote soaked timbers don't make for good breathing! The local news had some spectacular footage of the fire at its peak... A very long, thick black curtain of smoke rising hundreds of feet into the air, visible 50 miles away, they said. Cause said to be a chemical used to seal wood. Don't know if they were referring to the creosote or if some other chemical was used recently to treat the timbers.
Another interesting aspect mentioned on the local news... That trestle also had major communications lines on it... big bundles of fibre optics, etc., running down to the Bay Area.
It's nasty smelling stuff, hope folks stay out of its way
Sacramento KCRA 3 video here
http://www.kcra.com/news/11265140/detail.html
some pics here
Sacramento
News10.com
http://www.news10.net/news/gallery/train-fire/train-fire-gallery.aspx
video
5:55 p.m. - Aerials Over Burning Trestle
http://www.news10.net/video/player_news10.aspx?aid=37214&bw=
.-.ROP alert? Note name of photo supplier to the tv news in links.
Update ;; bridge is likely toast
an ap piece..
Dramatic fire burns railroad trestle near Sacramento
http://www.bakersfield.com/119/story/105460.html
AARON C. DAVIS | Thursday, Mar 15 2007 7:30 PM
Last Updated: Thursday, Mar 15 2007 7:30 PM
A 300-foot stretch of an elevated railroad trestle caught fire Thursday evening, sending a dramatic wall of thick, black smoke thousands of feet into the air and disrupting rail traffic through the state capital.
The blaze forced Amtrak to halt a westbound train from Reno to Sacramento, said George Elsmore, railroad operations and safety program manager for the California Public Utilities Commission.
He said the fire also was likely to disrupt freight traffic throughout Northern California.
"This is a main line for the Union Pacific. It's a major line right over the American River," he said.
Fire officials said they had not determined how the blaze started. But the creosote-soaked trestle - which keeps trains elevated above local roads and a wetlands area - fueled an intense fire that could be seen from more than 50 miles away.
The spectacle drew a crowd of hundreds of pedestrians from nearby hotels and stores and crippled rush-hour traffic on the Capital City Freeway around Cal Expo, the state fairgrounds. The fire also had cut power to some local stores.
The trestle, which was buckling and appeared ready to collapse, supports a key rail artery leading into Sacramento.
Officials reported that several Amtrak trains were scheduled to travel through that section of track and were being stopped. Freight lines also are expected to be stalled by the fire, Union Pacific spokesman James Barnes told The Sacramento Bee.
"It certainly is one of our main lines," Barnes said. "We are anticipating that the trestle will not survive. The important thing now is get that fire under control and out, and then we can better assess the situation."
No train was involved in the fire, he said.
Emergency workers used loudspeakers to tell pedestrians to stay out of the path of the smoke, fearing it may be hazardous. The wall of smoke extended an estimated 2,000 feet into the air and bent in a giant S-curve, blanketing the capital skyline.
Christian Pebbles, a Sacramento Fire Department spokesman, told KCRA-TV that the relatively remote location of the fire was making it difficult for firefighters. There were no water hydrants nearby.
Firefighters, however, were using what water they could get to the site to make a defensive stand near a levee on the American River, Pebbles said.
I wondered that also, which is why I was curious if any FReepers had knowledge about long spans (apparently 300 feet) of creosote (sp?) uniformly burning across the whole span. I just got home from a class and saw on the news it's STILL burning (8:30 p.m. PST). Would a single ignition point (say, a lone arsonist) cause that, or would it have to be deliberately done for that all-at-once effect? I honestly have no idea and am very curious if this is a local ROP activity or more random arson.
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