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Service shut down, riders evacuated after Orange Line fire

Print | Comments () Posted by Martin Finucane March 28, 2011 04:50 PM

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Boston Fire Department

Passengers clambered out of the train, which is visible in the distance, then walked down the tracks and climbed out of the train pit in the Chinatown station with the help of ladders placed by firefighters.

By John M. Guilfoil and Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

More than 200 people were evacuated this afternoon from a six-car Orange Line train after a grease fire broke out in a tunnel near the Chinatown station, the Boston Fire Department said.

Firefighters responded at 3:02 p.m. to a report of a fire involving a train just outside the station, said department spokesman Steve MacDonald.

Deputy Fire Chief Joseph Finn said at the scene that grease had accumulated in the track area and when a train passed over it, it sparked a small but very smoky fire 100 feet before the Chinatown station. The fire was extinguished with two carbon dioxide fire extinguishers, he said.

No one was injured as 225 passengers were evacuated, said MacDonald.

Service was shut down between the Tufts Medical Center and Chinatown stations in both directions. Service had resumed by about 4:45 p.m.

Daniel Adams, an Emerson College junior, said he was on the southbound platform at the Chinatown station when he heard "a few loud thunks that kind of reverberated. You could feel them in the floor."

"It sounded like something heavy falling and pretty quickly there was smoking coming up the tunnel" from the direction of the Tufts Medical Center station, he said. He said the smoke was "really, nasty chemical smoke."

He said MBTA officials allowed people on his platform to board a southbound train that went past the disabled train, but he didn't see any flames when his train passed the train that was stopped in the tunnel.

Were you on the train? We'd like to hear your story. Please email John M. Guilfoil at jguilfoil@globe.com.

Globe correspondent Katherine M. Landergan contributed to this report.