"At last, the firefighters had an attack point set up and firefighter Mark Gonzales began playing a monitor on the blaze, shooting a mixture of water and Class A foam on the head of the fire under the direction of MFD Captain Hugo Patino. At this point, the fire had been raging close to an hour. At least half of the trestle was involved."

"The firefighters, with a lot of mutual aid from surrounding districts, had things pretty well contained as soon as they got water on the blaze, but it was obvious that the trestle was a goner. I made my way out to the north bank of the river, about a quarter mile from the beginning of the floodplain, and watched in awe as the stringers began falling away. By chance, I had positioned myself opposite what seemed to be the ignition point for the fire. It was 3:50PM and just a matter of time before the old girl came crashing down."

"Suddenly, a horrendous crash at the far end of the blaze told us the collapse was coming in the opposite direction. She came down in fiery domino pattern at 4:03PM, erupting into one last burst of flame as the deck hit the ground."

page 3

"A northwest wind was blowing about 10-15MPH, adding oxygen to the creosote-fueled blaze that was marching steadily toward 9th Street. Talk about hot! The fire was creating it's own wind and despite being upwind out of harm's way, I couldn't get within 200 feet of the blaze." .

"I shot a number of long shots and details as the flames worked their beautiful dance of death on the trestle."

page 1

"A Modesto firefighter walked out to my position a a couple of minutes later. I figured he'd come to ask me to move, but not so--like me, he was trying to determine when the bridge would fall and where it might go first.  He concluded, along with me, that it would break from south to north." 

Tidewater Southern Railway

Burning of the Tuolumne River Bridge

all photos on this page are by Ted Benson and are used by permission.  Copyright 2001 Modesto Bee

click the image to see an enlarged version.