Civic Center BART station reopens after blown insulator causes fire and damages track, agency says
"It looked like a tornado almost. I didn't know what was going on at first."
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- The Civic Center BART station in San Francisco reopened on Tuesday following an electrical fire on one of its tracks, the transit agency announced on Tuesday.
BART said the fire was on the third rail, and one track will need to be repaired.
"We had an initial report of a blown insulator in the trackway. A blown insulator makes a loud noise and generates smoke and arcing," BART said.
Thick plumes of smoke and sounds of an an explosion at the Civic Center BART station startled many people Tuesday morning.
"It looked like a tornado almost. I didn't know what was going on at first," said Montay Boseman. He was working on Market Street and captured the smoke on his cellphone.
"When I looked over there, I saw a whole bunch of smoke billowing from the grate in the ground from the vent' it was just shooting in the sky," said Boseman.
The fire department says crews arrived around 11:30 a.m.
"When crews arrived on scene, they found they had a fire on the third rail, an electrical fire. They extinguished that fire with a dry chemical extinguisher while working with the BART workers on scene," said Samuel Menchaca with SF Fire Department.
The San Francisco Fire Department said in a tweet on X at 12:11 p.m. the fire is out.
The fire caused delays on the San Francisco line as no trains were running between 24th Street and Montgomery Street for a brief period.
The station closure was first announced by BART around 11:40 a.m. on X.
No injuries have been reported.
ABC7 News saw crews working to repair the damage done to the third rail-- including removing what appeared to be a damaged section.
Service resumed on the repaired track around 2 p.m.
Passersby are still stunned by the developments.
"It was pretty wild. I was surprised to see that. We see a lot of crazy stuff in the area but never never like that," said Boseman.
Late Tuesday afternoon, BART said the fire was started by a 'foreign object' on the trackway that then came into contact with the third rail.
BART has not identified the object. BART also stated there was no train in the area at the time the fire started.
This comes after BART had an issue on Monday on the green and red line near the West Oakland station, impacting train service for hours. It was also due to an equipment problem.
This track problem adds to a long list of others going back months.
This is the latest problem in a series of issues has experienced this year.
The most recent issue was on Wednesday when an equipment problem on the track near the West Oakland station impacted trains for hours. Delays remained until almost 11:30 in the morning. The issue was a track switch problem and the second time in two business days issues with BART led to delays for riders.
Last Friday, vandalism led to a disruption that BART said was unrelated to other disruptions this year.
On October 20 and 27 there were issues in the Transbay Tube.
On Sept. 5, there was a computer-related issue that caused systemwide delays.
Back on August 29, riders were left stranded after the brakes overheated and smoke filled the Transbay Tube.
On May 20, there was a fire on the tracks, shutting down the Green Line service for days and there was another systemwide outage on May 9.
In prior interviews, BART officials have told ABC7 News they can't promise there won't ever be another equipment problem or systemwide outage.
