ARCADIA, Ohio — About 30 residences near a Norfolk Southern rail line were evacuated early Sunday after a train derailed and some of its cars carrying ethanol exploded.
No injuries were reported when 26 cars derailed from the 62-car eastbound train at 2:20 a.m. near the Cass-Washington township line in northeast Hancock County, authorities said. Each of the cars, carrying about 33,000 gallons each of denatured ethanol -- ethanol spiked with a small amount of gasoline so that it is not suitable for human consumption -- caught fire, with some exploding into fireballs.
By mid-afternoon, as the explosion risk diminished, many of the evacuated residents had been allowed to return home, but eight residences within a mile of the derailment site remained off-limits indefinitely.
The Red Cross was helping some of those shut out of their homes, while others were staying with relatives nearby, Washington Township Fire Chief Troy Stoner said.
Hancock County Road 216 and Cass Township roads 247 and 243 remained closed in the area.
Chief Stoner said it might take three days for the fires to burn themselves out. Local fire departments, he said, would play a support role behind contractors Norfolk Southern sent to the scene to manage the fire and clean up the derailment's aftermath.
Rudy Husband, Norfolk Southern spokesman, said the derailed cars were near the front of the train. Fire officials said the train's locomotives and first two cars were pulled safely away from the derailed cars after the accident.
"Obviously, the cause is under investigation," Mr. Husband said.
The train was en route from Chicago to North Carolina when it derailed.
Earlier in the day, Washington Township Fire Capt. Jim Breyman said firefighters initially feared the fire could spread to the nearby Blanchard Valley Co-Op, 3725 Cass Township Road 247, where anhydrous ammonia, a chemical even more hazardous than ethanol, is used for making fertilizer.
But the fire captain said the blaze did not spread from the tracks, sparing two nearby homes and a farm. One semi caught fire and crews used water to douse it, he said.
At about 3:30 p.m., one tank car that firefighters feared might explode violently as its contents heated and boiled from the fire did rupture, but only with a small explosion from its top.
One hundred firefighters from surrounding departments responded to the scene in Cass Township, just west of Arcadia. Loud explosions could be heard for hours after the initial call, authorities said.
Nancy Hollingsworth, 80, who lives about a quarter-mile north of the explosion site, recalled awaking to the sound of fire truck sirens. She went to the window to see what was going on.
"You could just see everything. It was so bright," she said of seeing flames in the night sky. Initially, she feared the area was under attack.
Within minutes, firefighters evacuated her from her home. She has lung cancer and other health conditions and could not leave on her own.
"It was pretty scary because you didn't know what was going on," she said Sunday morning from the Arcadia United Methodist Church, one of two evacuation shelters to which area residents were taken.
Ethanol under normal conditions is not explosive, but like other liquids, it has a boiling point, and if it boils under pressure, a tank or other vessel containng it can explode. Chief Stoner added that while straight ethanol burns with a clear flame, the five percent gasoline added as a denaturant for transportation created the more spectacular flames visible for miles around after the accident.
First Published February 6, 2011, 9:51 p.m.
