Watch above: raw video shot by Ron Fogg of the train derailment near Wadena, Sask. on Oct. 7, 2014
WADENA, Sask. – The local fire chief says an evacuation order has been lifted for residents of a small Saskatchewan community forced from their homes by a fiery train derailment.
Wadena fire chief Harold Narfason says the fire is out and everyone from Clair and surrounding farms has been given the all clear to go home.
“There is no risk to the public now,” Narfason said Wednesday morning.
“There’s no concerns about pollutants in the air. Everything is falling into place quite nicely.”
Narfason said the decision to lift the evacuation order was made jointly by fire and CN officials.
The CN freight train derailed Tuesday about 190 kilometres east of Saskatoon.
A few of the 26 cars that left the traffic were carrying petroleum products and caught fire.
Narfason said a highway nearby was still closed while workers cleared the tracks and put in new rail bed, but it was expected to reopen by 6 p.m.
CN spokesman Jim Feeny said the train was made up of three locomotives pulling 100 rail cars and that 26 of them derailed.
He said the fire came from petroleum distillates, which spilled from two of the derailed cars.
Alison Squires, who is the publisher of the Wadena News, went to the fire and said she has never seen anything like it in the 13 years she has lived in the area.
“I’ve seen derailments, but this is a pretty bad one,” she said.
“You could see … this huge plume of black smoke. When I got there, there was a small explosion. The smoke is too thick to see what cars are involved.”
She added that there was a detour going north to pass the derailment, but not one going south.
“They are assuming the smoke is toxic.”
Pictures from the scene suggested the derailment took place in a sparsely populated area. They showed the smoke billowing high into the sky.
Watch below: raw video of the train derailment near Clair, Sask.
The Transportation Safety Board said it was deploying a team of investigators to the site. CN sent in a hazardous materials team to clean up the area.
The railway industry has been under increased scrutiny since July 2013, when 47 people died after a train carrying oil derailed and exploded in downtown Lac-Megantic, Que.
Adam Scott, a spokesman for the advocacy group Environmental Defence, said Canada is experiencing a boom in the use of railways to transport petroleum products.
“The freight rail lines actually go right through the centre of almost every major urban centre in the entire country including small towns, communities across the country, so the risk of accidents is significant,’ he said.
“The government has introduced measures, but they don’t go nearly far enough in terms of safety.”
He said rail companies are not required to publicly disclose the types of hazardous materials being transported on trains.
“It’s unacceptable,” he said. “The municipalities themselves, the communities have no power, no control, and in this case no information even over what’s being run through the rail lines.”
In August, the Transportation Safety Board issued a report into the Lac-Megantic tragedy that called for improved safety measures and cited inadequate oversight by Transport Canada. One of the criticisms brought forward was a lack of inspections.
Harry Gow, president of advocacy group Transport Action Canada, said the derailment in Saskatchewan shows the need for more inspectors.
“I would say that if one wants to ensure safety in moving hazardous goods, one has to have inspectors who are empowered to do the work, that are trained to do more than just check the company’s paperwork, and are sufficiently numerous and well-resourced to get out on the ground and see what’s going on,” he said.
“The incident in Saskatchewan today is fortunately not occurring in a large town,” he said.
“But that doesn’t excuse the lack of oversight by Transport Canada.”
The Saskatchewan government is providing support to the communities impacted by the derailment.
WATCH: Is the government doing enough to ensure rail safety?
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