Two small fires on a rail track near the Tenleytown-AU Metro station caused delays on the red line for more than an hour Tuesday evening.
The fires, which both occurred on the Glenmont-bound tracks, were spontaneous, quick-burning fires often referred to as flashovers, according to Metro spokesperson Steven Taubenkibel.
While Taubenkibel said he was not sure what exactly caused the flashovers in this case, he said they can be caused by debris overheating after contacting the electrified third rail that powers the Metrorail trains. Members of the D.C. Fire Department on the scene said garbage had caught fire on the track.
The first flashover, which occurred at 8:45 p.m., delayed a train leaving Tenleytown. Once Metro workers extinguished the fire, they allowed the train to proceed, according to a service disruption report posted on the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority's Web site.
The second flashover, which occurred at 9:05 p.m., caused Metro officials to close the Glenmont-bound side of the line between the Friendship Heights and Van Ness-UDC stations, according to Taubenkibel. Metro workers took one train out of service as a result of the second fire and made passengers wait at the Friendship Heights station for a replacement train to arrive, according to the WMATA Web site.
"When the second fire occurred, the fire department was called in as a precaution, just to make sure that everything was all right," Taubenkibel said.
During the incident, Wisconsin Avenue was closed off from Tenley Circle past both station entrances. Taubenkibel said that road closures are not uncommon.
"When the fire department is called to the scene, they need to have an area to secure their vehicles and to use as a staging area," he said.
Small, portable gates were placed around the escalators at the Whole Foods entrance to the station, which were left slightly open to allow passengers to exit the station. Taubenkibel said the station might have been briefly closed to allow firefighters to get onto the station platform but that any such closure was very short.
Trains continued to run on the Shady Grove-bound track while members of the fire department and Metro officials inspected the area of track affected by the fires. Since trains moving in both directions were sharing the track, there were significant delays.
Metro officials restored full service around 10:15 p.m. after the fire department determined there was no significant damage to either the station or the track.
