Category Archives: Fire

Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire, Rivers, Smoke

LATEST DERAILMENT: Another Ontario derailment and fire, only 23 miles from Feb 14 fire

Repost from CBC News
[Editor: I almost missed this one – who’d have thought there would be a SECOND big accident near Gogama, Ontario in less than a month?!  Interesting interviews with local residents.  See local coverage at Timmins Press.  – RS]

Train carrying crude oil derails near Gogama, Ont.

This is the 4th train derailment in northern Ontario this year

Mar 07, 2015 12:58 PM ET
Gogama derailment cropped
A train carrying crude oil derailed near Gogama, Ont., on Saturday morning, and several cars caught fire. (Ontario Provincial Police)

A train carrying crude oil derailed near Gogama, Ont., on Saturday morning, and several cars caught fire. (Ontario Provincial Police)

Several cars have caught fire after a Canadian National Railway train carrying crude oil derailed in northern Ontario, prompting officials to advise nearby residents to stay indoors and avoid consuming water from local sources.

Ontario Provincial Police were called to the scene at approximately 2:45 a.m. ET. The Transportation Safety Board said 30 to 40 cars derailed four kilometres southwest of Gogama, Ont., and there were no initial reports of injuries

Several cars have caught fire, police said, and others entered the Mattagami River System.

The cause of the derailment is still under investigation and the Ministry of Environment has been notified.

Residents of Mattagami First Nation are being advised not to consume water from the community source for the time being. Residents of Gogama and Mattagami First Nation are being asked to stay inside until further notice due to possible smoke inhalation.

CN Rail said emergency crews are conducting a full site assessment and activating the emergency response plan with local officials.

The owner of the Gogama Village Inn said she is thankful the winds are blowing in a different direction. She said she fears smoke from the fire could force the town to be evacuated.

Derailment not far from inn

Roxanne Veronneau said the site of the derailment is approximately two kilometres from her Inn.

“I look out my window here at the Inn and all I see is the smoke in the distance. I could see it at four o’clock in the morning. It makes you feel rather uncomfortable knowing that wow, hopefully there is not going to be a next time and that our town will be safe. But when you see like, 100 cars, I don’t know, 70 cars of crude oil coming right down the middle of your town, the thought crosses your mind when you see what’s happened in Quebec.”

Veronneau said her Inn was already full of workers who were dealing with the cleanup of the derailment that happened last month. “Once again the town is crawling with transports and machinery trying to get it under control.”

The town has come together to help, said Veronneau. She said she’s been coordinating to get anything workers need.

“One guy went and brought life jackets and paddles,” she said. “He came back to get ice augers, our snow machines. We are helping, doing whatever it takes to get this under control.”

Local MPP heads to site

NDP MPP for the region France Gélinas said she was travelling to the site after speaking to members of the local services board and residents of Gogama.

“They are courageous and scared,” said Gélinas. “This is the second derailment near their town and this one is very close. People can talk pictures of the black smoke from their homes.”

Natalie Gaudette with the local services board said there is no immediate danger to residents and CN officials are on site doing air quality tests.

Highway 144 at Highway 661 at the Watershed is closed, as is Highway 101 at Highway 144. There is access to communities north of Gogama by way of the Cache.

This is the fourth CN Rail derailment in northern Ontario this year.

A train derailed last month, spilling crude oil and forcing the closure of the rail line.

Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire, Let it burn

2 oil cars still burning at Illinois derailment site

Repost from The Northwest Herald, Crystal Lake, IL
[Editor: Interesting fire-fighting details: “…authorities say they did not have to allow a leaking car to explode as was initially expected….the tank car’s pressure relief valve closed, stopping the leak and allowing firefighters to extinguish that fire. Two other cars remain on fire in what authorities describe as a ‘controlled burn.'”  – RS]

2 oil cars still burning at Illinois derailment site

By The Associated Press, Saturday, March 7, 2015 11:01 a.m. CST
Smoke and flames erupt from the scene of a train derailment Thursday, March 5, 2015, near Galena, Ill. A BNSF Railway freight train loaded with crude oil derailed around 1:20 p.m. in a rural area where the Galena River meets the Mississippi, said Jo Daviess County Sheriff's Sgt. Mike Moser. (AP Photo/Telegraph Herald, Mike Burley)
Smoke and flames erupt from the scene of a train derailment Thursday, March 5, 2015, near Galena, Ill. A BNSF Railway freight train loaded with crude oil derailed around 1:20 p.m. in a rural area where the Galena River meets the Mississippi, said Jo Daviess County Sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Moser. (AP Photo/Telegraph Herald, Mike Burley)

GALENA, Ill. — Two rail cars remain on fire at the site where an oil train derailed this week in western Illinois. But authorities say they did not have to allow a leaking car to explode as was initially expected.

Authorities had warned of the likelihood of more explosions at the site of Thursday’s derailment south of Galena.

But in an update Saturday, the Federal Railroad Administration said the tank car’s pressure relief valve closed, stopping the leak and allowing firefighters to extinguish that fire.

Two other cars remain on fire in what authorities describe as a “controlled burn.”

Twenty-one of the train’s 105 cars derailed in an area where the Galena River meets the Mississippi. No one was injured.

As of Friday night, there were no signs that waterways had been contaminated.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire, Oil Industry, Oil stabilization, Rail industry, Tank car design, Tar sands crude, Valero Benicia Refinery

EDITORIAL: Four explosive derailments in a month – how much longer?

By Roger Straw, Benicia Independent Editor, March 6, 2015

Yesterday afternoon, a multitude of news flashes broke out telling of yet another oil train derailment with fiery explosions, this time right alongside the Mississippi River outside Galena, Illinois.  The oil and rail industries escaped with another close call – no one was injured or killed this time and – so far – no reports of crude oil in the waters of the mighty Mississip.

The Galena accident is the fourth major derailment with hazmat fire in recent weeks!  (Dubuque, Iowa [2/4]; Gogama, Ontario [2/14]; Mount Carbon, West Virginia [2/16]; and Galena, Illinois [3/5]).  (LATER: now there have been five: a second derailment and explosion in  Gogama Ontario, [on 3/7], just 23 miles from the 2/14 fire.  – Editor)

There WILL be more.  The question everyone is asking: whose lives are at risk right now in schools and hospitals, commercial centers, apartment complexes and homes in the mile-wide evacuation zones along the rails that crisscross the country?  If Valero’s Benicia refinery is granted a permit and hires Union Pacific to run oil trains over the Sierra and across the state of California to Benicia, whose cozy little town uprail from here will be host to the next “Big One?”  Or if we’re “lucky,” what California wilderness will be the next to endure the foul spills and the consuming fires of an explosive oil train crash?

And who will pay for lives and property lost, for infrastructure repairs and the massive cleanup?

Oddly perhaps, my thoughts turned gently this morning to those refinery executives who have invested so much time and energy in planning for and implementing the rail transport of North American oil – Bakken crude and tar-sands (diluted bitumen).  I’m trying to imagine what it must be like for these decent career employees to eagerly wake up to a good cup of coffee and the morning news … only to be jolted once again as their tv shows video of yet another horrific oil train explosion.  It must be disheartening.  How, with every news outlet all across the U.S. paying attention to the need for safer tank cars with stabilized contents (and more) – how difficult for oil industry execs to begin to realize the folly of their plans.  It must be like learning there’s no Santa Claus.  Or like a nation having to decide to back out of a Vietnam war.  It can’t be easy.  But I dare to hope that some executive somewhere is going to make a decision soon: this has to stop.  He or she can swallow that cup of coffee, take a deep breath, and lead the way.  No more.  Not here.  Not me.  Not our company.

I wonder, too, about those who govern.  Why should our officials continue to allow the use of those old failing rails, aging bridges and dangerous tank cars to carry volatile chemicals today?  How much longer until our local, state and federal leaders call an end to this dangerous and polluting practice?  When will they stop trying to fix the system with minor safety upgrades and call a moratorium until the whole thing is worked out to protect the public’s health and safety?

What started out here in Benicia in early 2013 as a small, alert group of us who were concerned for the earth; an effort to take no part locally in the stripping of lands and environments in Alberta Canada and Montana and the Dakotas; and an understanding of the facts indicating the certain increase in toxic emissions affecting our air and water if Valero would move to crude by rail … these early concerns of ours were “blown away” (as it were), by the explosions, by the frightening and repeated demonstrations of the incredible risks of transporting volatile North American crude oil by rail and by the lack of adequate safeguards of a rail industry that cannot be controlled locally or regionally.

Our federal regulators MUST stand up to the industries and put an immediate stop to these bomb trains.  Until new regulations are in place to stabilize the oil before it is loaded, and until a totally new design for safer tank cars is approved and manufactured, and until the infrastructure that carries those new cars is upgraded, we should not have to live with the deadly risk.

Our resources would be better spent during a moratorium on crude by rail funding a massive increase in investment in clean energy.  Someone needs to put serious effort into planning a 5 or 10 year phase-out of fossil fuels.  Ok, 20.  It would be cataclysmic to just STOP the flow of oil and gasoline.  Even so, I think we’d survive it.  Someone should think it through carefully, and lay it out in steps that lead surely and safely away from crude oil … by rail or by any other means.

– Benicia Independent Editor, Roger Straw

Crude By Rail, Derailment, Evacuation, Explosion, Fire, Let it burn

RACHEL MADDOW: Fiery explosion as another oil train derails

Repost from MSNBC, The Rachel Maddow Show
[Editor:  Extraordinary coverage.  Fast forward to minute 7:30 to see the report with video of the Galena, Illinois derailment and explosion along with an interview with an on-the-scene investigative reporter.  – RS]

Fiery explosion as another oil train derails

3/5/15

Mark Stevens, KWQC-TV investigative reporter, talks with Rachel Maddow about a still-burning oil train explosion in Illinois, on a day that included miles of cars stranded in the snow in Kentucky and a plane sliding off the runway in New York City.  Duration: 13:27