Canadian Freight Train Crew Records the Tense Minutes Their Locomotive Spent Surrounded by Wildfire Flames Near Armstrong

Crew members aboard a Canadian National Railway freight locomotive captured roughly 84 seconds of video on July 13 that puts viewers right inside the cab as wildfire pushed close to the tracks near Armstrong in northwestern Ontario. The recording, later shared publicly, shows the train stalled while intense flames and thick smoke turned the view outside into a constant swirl of orange.

Every frame has an orange light that is present from the beginning. The fire is twisting and rolling in thick waves just beyond the side windows, and its brightness floods inside, filling the cabin with a color that paints everything in the cab, walls, switches, papers scattered all over the place, in glowing ember tones. The perspective then shifts forward through the windshield, where a dense wall of orange smoke fills the entire area ahead, with fragments of burning items drifting by, and visibility is almost non-existent.

Pan back across the cab to show more side windows with flames pressing up against the frame’s borders and sparks shooting around in the hot air. At one point, it appears that the fire has formed a barrier around the cab, burning all the way up to the train line through the woodland. The camera lingers on these sights for a while, allowing you to observe how it never fades and the smoke keeps rolling.

Canadian National Railway later reported that the crew had made it out of the situation safely. As a precaution, they paused all rail operations in the Armstrong region and remained in contact with local authorities throughout the incident, putting worker and community safety first and foremost. The footage was released at a time when dozens of wildfires were blazing across northwestern Ontario, with several particularly large ones burning for weeks. One of them near Collins had already consumed almost 14,300 hectares since late May, as severe temperatures, low humidity, and strong winds made the situation extremely perilous. Mandatory evacuation orders were issued for Armstrong and other nearby First Nations communities, including Collins, Lac La Croix, Gull Bay, and a few more, due to smoke and flames endangering homes and infrastructure.
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