Earlier this week, Unsuck DC Metro unearthed this YouTube clip of a Metrorail car that stopped over a fire as smoke floated over both sides of the train. Fast forward to about the thirty second mark for the action.

Some riders purporting to have been on the train left comments on the post, filling in some of the details. According to those stories, the car was reportedly part of an outbound Orange Line train, and the fire was located between between the Deanwood and Cheverly stations in Prince George’s County. The tone, as one might expect, was one of serious surprise that a Metro train would come to a stop directly over open flames:

I was there! On that train. I wondered why we were driving through flames but not much I could do about it. Flames on both sides – first “stage right” on the right outside edge, which is what that video appears to show and then just as we passed by, more flames on the left in the middle of the track area.

Only human was one fellow off to “stage-right” of the train outside of the fence with a hoe. He was slowly and barely pushing flaming bits back through a hole in the fence. NO other human around!

The entire car went “whoa!” and watched as we flamed by the flames.

The fire appears to have occurred on Thursday, March 18. Unsuck DC Metro notes that the incident didn’t appear on WMATA’s rail disruption report for the day, probably because it didn’t really cause a delay, so to speak. Metro did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the video.

WMATA has another emergency response training exercise scheduled for early Sunday morning at the Foggy Bottom station. Perhaps new Interim General Manager Richard Sarles might want to add “remind train operators to not stop trains directly over flames” to the incident preparedness to do list, yes?