(The Gillette News-Record posted the following article on its website on May 13.)
GILLETTE, Wyo. — Two Burlington Northern Santa Fe train locomotives caught fire in separate incidents near Gillette but were extinguished by firefighters, according to the Campbell County Fire Department.
Fire Marshal Dave Mansur said the fires in the empty coal trains that happened Monday evening and early Tuesday morning were coincidental and unrelated.
Both fires started in an engine turbo of the SD70MAC locomotives and were contained to that area. “It’s spraying a mist onto the hot manifolds of the exhausts and it just ignited,” Mansur said.
“The employees tried using fire extinguishers and with a diesel engine there’s a lot of grease and oil that were burning,” he added. “By the time we got out there we used a bit of water” to extinguish the fires.
The first train caught fire at about 6 p.m. Monday while it was southbound one mile north of Bishop Road. The 1997 locomotive was extinguished but the fire halted train traffic in the area for about an hour, Mansur said.
The second fire was reported at about 4 a.m. Tuesday one mile east of Rozet where a train was westbound. There was no report of whether the fire in the 1994 locomotive also stopped train traffic.