Fire-prone old BNSF train ignited 500-acre Columbia Gorge blaze, state finds

Chunks of hot carbon and lubricant pads spewed from a 1970s-era BNSF Railway locomotive causing a wildfire in southern Washington in July, according to an investigation from the Washington Department of Natural Resources.

The Tunnel 5 fire in the Columbia River Gorge burned 546 acres and destroyed 10 structures before it was put out on July 14, two weeks after it ignited beside BNSF Railway tracks in Skamania County west of White Salmon.

A Department of Natural Resources fire investigation, first reported by Columbia Insight, ruled out lightning and other possible ignition sources. The agency blamed a BNSF train that carried lumber toward the railway’s Tunnel 5 about 15 minutes before various 911 callers reported seeing flames amid the grass and dry brush beside the tracks.

“This train emitted some object(s) which started fire in three areas over an [approximate] 690-foot distance, all on the north side of the tracks,” Department of Natural Resources investigator Bruce Long concluded.

Long found 1- to 2-inch chunks of carbon—oversized exhaust particles from a diesel engine—and more than 70 scraps of train-wheel lubrication pads in or near the three spots where the fire broke out.

“No other evidence was located which can explain the three simultaneous fires starting within the same time frame and inside this 690-foot-long area, all on the north side of the BNSF tracks,” Long wrote.