(The following story by Pamela Manson appeared on the Salt Lake Tribune website on June 30.)
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — The federal government filed suit Thursday alleging that Union Pacific Railroad’s failure to properly maintain its tracks and trains sparked a blaze in Juab County that burned more than 60,000 acres and racked up millions of dollars in firefighting and rehabilitation costs.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, seeks more than $4 million: About $3,272,944 in damages and another $817,250 in interest.
Union Pacific is denying responsibility for the fire, which actually started as two separate blazes that eventually merged.
The suit says the fire began July 2, 1999, and spread from the Union Pacific right-of-way to adjacent private and federal land. It alleges that a train cast off hot carbon or another hot material that ignited the blaze.
The railroad could have avoided starting the fire by, among other actions, using state-of-the-art technology for engine and wheel operations, fire or “hot spot” detection and self-contained prevention, the suit claims.
In 2003, a Union Pacific contractor, Harsco Corp. of Camp Hill, Penn., agreed to pay $79,684 for starting an 804-acre fire in Juab County with sparks from a railroad grinder. John Bromley, a spokesman for the Omaha-based railroad, said there is no evidence that Union Pacific started the other fire.
The combined fire caused the evacuation of Mammoth and part of Eureka, two small communities in eastern Juab County.