Emergency crews are monitoring a massive fire burning after a tanker train carrying oil and gas derailed west of Edmonton overnight.
Thirteen cars — four carrying petroleum crude oil and nine carrying liquefied petroleum gas — came off the tracks around 1 a.m. in the hamlet of Gainford, about 85 kilometres west of Edmonton on Highway 16, halfway between the Seba Beach overpass and the old Gainford Hotel.
Emergency crews responded shortly after 1 a.m. to reports of an explosion.
Jim Phelan, Parkland County fire chief, told a news conference that one car carrying liquefied petroleum gas exploded, causing damage to several other cars.
No injuries have been reported. Ken Lemke, the MLA for Stony Plain, said some CN workers were taken to hospital for observation but released.
Residents for miles around saw and heard a “large fireball,” Phelan said.
“There’s been no explosion or similar event like that since,” he said.
“How it exploded, and why, that’s yet to be determined.”
Phelan said crews on scene are allowing the product to burn off.
“We’re better off to allow it to vent and burn,” he said. “It’s unsafe to start fire-suppression activities.”
Of the 13 cars that derailed, only three are considered compromised, Phelan said.
Parkland County has declared a local state of emergency for Gainford and the immediate surrounding area. All area residents are to avoid the area until further notice.
The cleared area extends 1.6 kilometres from the epicentre of the derailment. The entire community of about 100 people has been evacuated, said Carson Mills, a spokesman for Parkland County.
Elaine Hughes, who lives in a trailer park near the derailment site, woke up to a blast that shook her home. She immediately thought of the Edmonton tornado of 1987, which she lived through.
Her room was bathed in orange light from flames she estimated were about 100 metres away.
“I went flying out of bed and I go look out the window, I could see great big flames way high in the air,” Hughes said. “Then the flames went out and there was nothing but black smoke.”
Devon Cadwell, 15, was in bed in his home about two kilometres away from the scene, but awoke to a blast “so powerful it shook the house.” He got up and went outside to bring the horses in.
“We could see puffs of smoke and fire,” Cadwell said.
Cadwell said that around 1:30 a.m., he and his family were told they didn’t have to leave, but to be ready to evacuate. At about 5:30 a.m., the family was evacuated. They went to a cousin’s home.
A reception centre has been set up at the Entwistle Community Centre. Gainford residents are being put up in hotels and restaurants.
Forty-three firefighters from four fire districts are on scene, using 12 pieces of equipment.
They are alongside law enforcement officials, CN personnel, Transportation Safety Board investigators and Alberta government staff.
Edmonton Fire Rescue’s hazardous materials team is on-site. Edmonton police helicopter, Air-1, flew overhead during the night and into the morning.
Alberta Environment staff are on-site and will be setting up air monitoring equipment to check air quality downwind of the site, said Alberta Environment spokeswoman Robyn Cochrane.
Phelan said there is a little bit of black smoke that comes and goes but no indication yet of air-quality issues.
Government firefighters and equipment including a helicopter are being used to help out county staff with any grass fires in the area.
“We just won’t know the extent, from an environmental point of view, until it’s all said and done,” Cochrane said. “We’ll work with the company on containment and then also remediation.”
A stretch of the highway, also
Highway 16 traffic has been rerouted north along secondary Highway 765, westbound along secondary Highway 633 and returning southbound on secondary Highway 757. The portion of the highway is expected to be rerouted for the next 24 to 48 hours.
Gainford is about 20 kilometres west of Wabamun, along the same CN Rail line where on Aug. 3, 2005, 43 cars of a westbound CN freight train derailed, spilling 700,000 litres of heavy fuel oil and 88,000 litres of pole treating oil into and around Wabamun Lake, and forcing the evacuation of 20 people.
The Transportation Safety Board investigation found that the train derailed when the rail beneath it broke due to defects.
CN pleaded guilty to three charges under provincial and federal environmental legislation and was fined $1.4 million.
Parkland County Mayor Rod Shaigec said Saturday he feels fortunate that the Gainford derailment was not of the magnitude of last summer’s deadly train explosion in Lac Megantic, Que.
Forty-seven people died in July when a Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway train carrying highly flammable oil rolled into the town centre and exploded, levelling more than 30 buildings.