Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Why Train Derailment Causes Fire?

What causes train car that is full of crude oil to catch fire (after derailment)? Does the collision create enough heat for the crude oil to catch fire? I have watched Mythbuster and I can remember once in their show they were trying to shoot at gas tanks to make them explode but they couldn't since the bullets were not creating enough energy for the gas to ignite.

I'm not a fire investigator, but I can make a couple of quick guesses. My first guess is that there are large chunks of metal moving around and they could easily make sparks that could ignite the oil. Do they have electric power running from car to car for some kind of controls? If they do they might get an ignition from broken circuits. I think to do that they voltages would have to be relatively high, but it could happen.

Bill Gill