Fresno Bee article: Wildfire singed its core, but Sugar Pine railroad determined to ‘keep going’

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Haywood and around a dozen other railroad employees were on the front lines Tuesday afternoon as the wildfire ignited, called the Railroad Fire because of its proximity to the business. Employees there spotted a plume of smoke across Highway 41 shortly before the 12:30 p.m. train ride, says manager Shane Blackwell, who rushed up the hill to try and find the source of the blaze.

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Blackwell says within about 15 minutes of spotting smoke, the fire reached the highway and embers flew across the road, igniting at least half a dozen small fires on railroad property.

“It created its own wind,” Blackwell says. “It was just pulling oxygen.”

Around a dozen employees working Tuesday were able to extinguish the spot fires using a water truck, fire hoses and fire equipment owned by the railroad. Blackwell says he also filled a Caltrans water truck twice for a state employee who was working alongside railroad employees to extinguish the blaze before firefighters arrived. They were later told to evacuate.

“That day we kind of said goodbyes to our place and to each other – we didn’t know that it would be here,” Blackwell says. “There’s just so much fuel in the area.”