Saskatchewan train derailment and massive fire prompts town evacuation

Chris Morin
The National Post
Wed, 08 Oct 2014 00:45 UTC

A CN freight train carrying dangerous goods derailed in central Saskatchewan on Tuesday and caught fire.

The Saskatchewan government said the derailment happened near the small community of Clair, which was being evacuated. RCMP said people with farms in the area were also being told to leave.

CN spokesman Jim Feeny said the train was made up of three locomotives pulling 100 cars and that 26 of them derailed.

He said the fire came from petroleum distillate, which spilled from two of the derailed cars.

"They had fire and smoke," Feeny said. "The crew is not injured, but we have reports from the local authorities that some nearby residents in the rural area have been evacuated."

Highway 5 was closed in the area.

"Provincial emergency services are headed out there," said Karen Hill, a spokeswoman for Saskatchewan provincial emergency services. "The RCMP have closed the highway in both directions."

Alison Squires, who is the publisher of the Wadena News, went to the scene and said she has never seen anything like it in the 13 years she has lived in the area.

"I've seen derailments, but this is a pretty bad one," she said. "You could see ... this huge plume of black smoke. When I got there, there was a small explosion. The smoke is too thick to see what cars are involved."

She added that there was a detour going north to pass the derailment, but not one going south.

"They are assuming the smoke is toxic," she said.

Provincial officials could not immediately say what the train was carrying, but added hazardous materials crews were en route.

Garret Miskolczi, a power engineer from Englefeld, says that he was driving in the area shortly after the derailment occurred.

"The fire was just starting and within 15 minutes the flames started billowing," said Miskolczi, who says that the derailment is located close to the highway, about 10 minutes west of Wadena.

Miskolczi says that officials had taken the engine off the rest of the train and took it down the track before diverting traffic away from the area.

A witness told radio station CKOM that the flames are at least 30 metres high.

Pictures from the scene suggest the derailment took place in a sparsely populated area. They show black smoke billowing high into the sky.

Clair is about 190 kilometres east of Saskatoon near the community of Wadena.

The Transportation Safety Board said it was deploying a team of investigators to the site.

With files from Postmedia News