Freight Train Fire Burns for Second Day
February 17, 2015
A freight train carrying more than 100 tanker cars of crude oil derailed yesterday in West Virginia, sparking a fire that is still burning today. Several of the cars ignited in the derailment, causing explosions and sending flames shooting some 300 feet (91 meters) into the air. Because of the intense heat and smoke from the burning oil, firefighters are allowing the fire to burn out on its own. Hundreds of families who lived nearby were evacuated to a shelter. Several of the train cars derailed into the Kanawha River, causing authorities to close two water treatment facilities that draw water from the river. The train, operated by CSX Corporation, was transporting crude oil from the Bakken oil shale formation in North Dakota to a shipping depot in Yorktown, Virginia.
Tanker cars move three-quarters of the oil produced in the Bakken shale oil fields. Credit: © LeksusTuss/Shutterstock
Oil was discovered in the Bakken area in the 1950′s, but the cost of extracting it from the shale rock formation made it costly. In the 2000′s, hydraulic fracturing (or fracking for short) became a much cheaper way to extract oil from shale rock. The amount of oil now produced in the Bakken fields far exceeds what can be handled by a nearby pipeline, however, so approximately three-quarters of Bakken oil is transported by rail.
Rail lines sometimes run through areas where many people live, and some transportation experts have been concerned about the safety of moving such large amounts of oil by rail. A study last year showed that oil from the Bakken site is more volatile (liable to explode) than other types of oil.
Many types of dangerous chemicals moved by train are carried in special pressurized cars designed to resist rupturing. The cars used to transport oil, however, have no such safety system. After a train derailed in downtown Lac-Megantic in Quebec, Canada, in July 2013, killing 47 people, updating regulations for tanker car safety became more urgent. The U.S. Transportation Department is currently studying proposed safety regulations concerning shipping oil by rail.
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