A fire under the tracks near the San Leandro BART station on Tuesday cut off service on lines running in parts of the East Bay, affecting thousands of passengers.
Trains were not running during the morning rush hour on the green and orange lines from Lake Merritt in Oakland to Berryessa in San Jose. There was also no service on the blue line from Lake Merritt to the Dublin-Pleasanton station.
Trains were running in San Francisco and other parts of the system. But the fire was “causing major system wide delays,” according to an agency spokesperson.
Firefighters responded to an electrical fire at the BART station at 4:58 a.m., according to the Alameda County Fire Department. The station was evacuated while BART turned off the power, the fire department said.
Video posted on X by a KCBS reporter showed flames leaping from the elevated tracks and a fire burning on the ground.
BREAKING: dramatic electrical fire on the BART tracks at the San Leandro station has shut down service on multiple lines in the East Bay. Listen to @KCBSRadio for the latest. (Thanks to Amy Brown for this footage around 4:50am) pic.twitter.com/LNaUTa3izJ
— Matt Bigler (@mattbiglerradio) May 20, 2025
“Crews let the fire burn itself out, because water would energize the fire and create a more dangerous situation,” said Cheryl Hurd, a spokesperson for the fire department said.
It’s unclear what caused the fire, but cables were damaged, BART said.
BART had hoped repairs would be made so trains could run again for the afternoon commute. By 5:30 p.m., limited trains were running between the Dublin and Bay Fair stations on the blue line and the Hayward and Berryessa stations on the orange line. Service to all stations was restored on Wednesday, BART said.
The problems were compounded when a person entered the trackway at the 16th Street station in the Mission around 8:20 a.m. and caused 20-minute delays, BART said.
On May 9, the entire BART system was shut down for hours during the morning rush hour due to computer networking problems.