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Monday, March 18, 2024
March 18, 2024

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Letter: Oil train firefighting ability is poor

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As a fire commissioner for District 4 in Skamania County, I remain incredulous that our congressional delegation, including U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Camas, U.S. Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., have not addressed with meaningful legislation the inability to extinguish Bakken oil train fires in the Columbia River Gorge. No amount of planning and grant money will alter the fact that with the exception of the smallest fires, it is not possible to provide sufficient water to attempt to extinguish a fire as a result of derailment, even if tracks are accessible. Many sections of track in our fire district are not accessible.

With equipment provided from statewide sources under the Regional Fire Service Mobilization Plan, there are not sufficient water tenders available, and those that are would take hours to be deployed. The end result is that a Bakken oil train fire will burn unabated in a region that is heavily wooded and subject to high winds. This would be disastrous to the residents of the Gorge, visitors and to the overall qualities of the Gorge as we know them.

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