A stubborn fire smoldered for hours Thursday afternoon aboard a boxcar in Orange County off Lancaster Road. After firefighters finally got it under control, they discovered more than $100,000 worth of paper had been destroyed.
After more than two hours of planning and under a heavy spray of water, firefighters gingerly opened the once white-hot door to the boxcar, putting an end to their fears of a fireball.
It all started a few hundred yards down the CSX tracks that run along Orange Avenue. The boxcar was carrying 18 tightly-wound rolls of paper used by Mark Surprenant's cardboard box company.
"To get these rolls burning, they're wound so tightly, you have to get 'em super hot. And once they start to burn, it takes days for them to go out," he said.
But getting water on the fire was no easy task. First, they had to wait for an Amtrak train to crawl by. Then, an engine decoupled the burning boxcar and moved it away from other things that could burn. With it finally out of the way, they could confirm the fire's cause.
Once the boxcar was moved, it was easy to see how the fire started. Firefighters said the area was a homeless camp where someone left a burner on. That set the surrounding brush on fire, which then spread to the boxcar on the tracks.
Finally, in the sweltering heat, crews could attack the fire itself and it ended up not as bad as they'd feared. Only a few of the towering rolls of paper were actually on fire. But the rest were destroyed. That means a $100,000 loss for Mark Suprenant's company, money he said they'll never get back.
"It's just ridiculous. But it's a sad reality with the homeless folks on the trail here," he said.
Firefighters said they may never know who started the fire. Meanwhile, the box company will have to eat the cost, because it's self-insured.
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