MONTREAL – Federal Minister of Transport, Omar Alghabra, announced on Sunday the implementation of measures to prevent fires on the railway route.
A ministerial order now requires major rail companies, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, to reduce the speed of their trains as soon as the temperature reaches 30 degrees Celsius.
Locomotives should also be inspected before traveling in an area where the fire danger is “extreme”, to ensure that there is no accumulation of combustible substances in their exhaust pipes.
In addition, large companies will have to develop their own prevention plans and communicate them to affected municipalities and Aboriginal communities.
This decree will be in effect until October 31, that is, throughout the rest of the hot season. In a press release, the Ministry of Transport said it was working to “permanently integrate these fire risk reduction measures into the existing regulatory framework”.
Extreme climate
“Unprecedented weather conditions in British Columbia continue to pose a serious threat to public safety and rail operations,” Minister Alghabra said in the statement, referring to record temperatures in the village of Lytton, where the thermometer climbed to 49.6 degrees Celsius, a first in Canada.
The village became engulfed in flames on June 30, forcing the evacuation of residents of the municipality and neighboring First Nations communities.
No cause for the blaze that destroyed much of the village and killed two people has yet been revealed, although local indigenous leaders argue that passing trains during drought conditions has made people anxious.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has announced an investigation into the cause of the fire, saying new information points to the possibility that a freight train caused the tragic incident.
Additional measures have also been introduced in the area surrounding Lytton, where major rail companies are required to conduct forest fire “detection patrols”, and where each train driver is “responsible for locating fires.”
Situations like this are likely to repeat themselves “more and more often, with increasing severity, due to climate change,” the statement said.
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