OCALA, FL (352today.com) – Several agencies provided the Marion County Board of County Commissioners with an update regarding the railroad tie fire that occurred in Dunnellon on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, at meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 3.

On Sunday, a fire broke out in Dunnellon, where a considerable amount of railroad ties were being stored. The initial call came in at 2:42 a.m., with Marion County Fire and Rescue being initially dispatched to a dumpster fire at the O’Reilly Auto Parts store, said Marion County Fire and Rescue Chief James Banta.

Engine 3, the unit that covers the City of Dunnellon, responded, arrived on scene and didn’t find a dumpster fire, but did notice there was a fire that appeared to be coming from the railroad tie area, said Banta. It was investigated and found to be an active fire. The process of organizing and managing units began. In total, there were 19 fire suppression units, seven fire engines, one tower, eight grass trucks, three tankers and 54 fire fighters throughout the scene.

Initially, Marion County Fire and Rescue executed a pre-incident plan that had been developed back in October 2025, when the agency identified that this could be a possible issue, said Banta. That plan consisted of communication between MCFR executive staff, senior staff and battalion chiefs, so they would know about the hazard in the area. They looked at access areas and then communicated about potential hazards. They would coordinate with city and county officials for any voluntary evacuations due to smoke and then engage community partners from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, Marion County Emergency Management, the Florida Department of Emergency Management, Florida Department of Health and CSX.

Marion Conty Fire and Rescue had firefighters containing fire both at the north and south ends of the pile. The heavy equipment operations conducted included breaking down and separating the railroad tie piles and extinguishing and smothering the fire using heavy equipment and dirt.

The stakeholders on scene included Marion County Fire and Rescue, Marion County staff, Marion County Sheriff’s Office, City of Dunnellon, Florida Department of Health, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Florida Department of Emergency Management, CSX, and the Florida Forest Service also played a significant role in stopping the spread of the fire, said Banta.

Marion County Fire and Rescue measured about a half mile of railroad ties, and about half of those burned, said Banta. There was a lot of concern about water and how much water was applied to the fire. The overall tactic and plan were to stop the spread of the fire, not to extinguish the fire, with a significant amount of water used; most of that was at the ends of the fire trying to keep it from spreading further, along with trying to move railroad ties.

“We did not try to suppress the areas of the fire that were significantly involved, trying to balance our environmental concerns along with the extinguishment,” said Banta.

Evaluations and Assessment 

The next steps included having the CSX contractor onsite conducting testing, starting Feb. 3. The Marion County Fire and Rescue hazardous materials team had also independently started doing air quality testing around the area, and that will continue for the next several days, said Banta.

“We haven’t reported any significant concerns outside of tolerable levels, outside of the immediate burning area,” said Banta. ‘”We’re going to continue to coordinate with Marion County Emergency Management, the City of Dunnellon and the CSX contractor. The investigation as to the cause of the fire is being conducted by the Florida Department of Agriculture, their law enforcement, and CSX law enforcement. They are leading the investigation on what actually caused this fire.”

Marion County Commission Chair Carl Zalak, III, thanked Marion County Fire and Rescue Chief James Banta for the job the remarkable job they did, along with all of its partners.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection was there and took some soil samples from around the immediate scene.

Marion County Emergency Management director Preston Bowlin received the emergency notifications from his on-call person that had been notified by the command center on the morning of Feb. 1.

“I got up and responded to the scene, started making notifications, talking to Chief Banta, already knowing that ties were on fire with the initial report I had was to start making those notifications to the state watch office,” said Bowlin. “When we make notifications to the state watch office of what we have, it goes to like 350 agencies, anybody who would have interest in this event.”

Bowlin asked CSX if they had an estimation of how many railroad ties were onsite at that given time, and they estimated about 100,000 railroad ties.

“Our team was doing a size assessment of how many ties are involved and are going to be burned at the end of the day,” said Bowlin. “We kind of figured and even with comments from CSX, anywhere between 30 and 40,000.”

A well-coordinated team effort

Bowlin received a report from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office deputies and command staff that were on the scene when he arrived of what the needs were for protection, fire protection, getting that sized up from the fire department. The sheriff’s office had perimeters set up gauging the potential for fire spread. Emergency management started making notifications for Alert Marion, meeting with command staff, monitoring weather, getting spot reports, making the notification with Geofence, a virtual fence, around the Blue Cove area to keep the citizens in that area apprised. The Florida Department of Health administrator Mark Lander responded. The Environmental Protection Agency was also notified; DEP has been on the scene since Sunday and has been in communication with emergency management. They’ve also had conference calls with the City of Dunnellon, DEP and the Local Emergency Planning Committee out of Orlando to address ground monitoring. They’ve also talked with Carl Taylor of Forestry and his team, who were phenomenal with their presence on site with their heavy equipment, said Bowlin.

“I couldn’t be more proud of our responders of those agencies,” said Bowlin.

Marion County residents and private contractors were also calling asking how they could help and assist, said Bowlin. The command staff established what their objectives were and executed.

“One of the things that Chief Banta said, we knew there was a little bit of fire break that was already there, and we knew that’s where we needed to stop it,” said Bowlin. “My communications with CSX, there heavy equipment was still several hours out and talking with (City of Dunnellon) Mayor Green with what he needed to do, and that’s the reason that he instituted his local state of emergency. We were able to find a contractor that had an excavator and equipment to help start knocking that fire break and making it larger, which was a big help being able to put a dent in it before the rest of the heavy equipment showed up.”

The response was being coordinated with CSX and HAZMAT prior to them arriving on the scene, said Bowlin.

“They had two of their contractors respond for HAZMAT response,” said Bowlin. “CSX risk management was on scene. We had CSX police coordinate the events as well.”

Recovery and resilience

A command post was set up. Kevin Guthrie, Florida Division of Emergency Management executive director was also on site, and the state coordinator for the region that includes Marion County was also on scene, to assist the City of Dunnellon with ground, water and air monitoring, and this was being done simultaneously with CSX, HAZMAT and Marion County and Fire and Rescue, and they compared notes to make certain they were consistent, to provide accurate information to the City of Dunnellon, said Bowlin.

The Florida Division of Emergency Management was able to provide support to Marion County Fire and Rescue throughout Sunday night, said Bowlin. The Florida Guard was able to bring in a four-man drone team with a supervisor and flew throughout the night with thermal drones to look for hotspots, and then coordinate with the grass trucks, detecting several hot spots, with Marion County Fire and Rescue extinguishing those areas.

Blue Cove and the surrounding area is on municipal water in Dunnellon. Emergency Management will coordinate with the Department of Health to test the wells that are in the area.

Bowlin and Banta discussed the huge piles of ash that are continuing to burn, with concerns about winds blowing into the east side of Blue Cove, where there are wooded areas with dry conditions, and about mitigation and fire protection in that area. Bowlin talked with the railroad informing them what their concerns were. CSX went to the site with bulldozers and started thinning the area out and tilling it up, significantly reducing the number of hot spots as of Monday afternoon.

There are 50 gondola carts en route to the site, and it will more than likely take two loads to remove the remaining railroad ties, which will be transported to Alabama. The ash and the soil it sits on will have to be removed, with the soil being removed to a certain depth, and the soil will have to be backfilled. There was concern regarding the timeliness of the process to make certain the carcinogens don’t permeate the soil and Floridan aquifer.