shaft 9; these had been melted from the tanker walls, swept up with the exhaust gases, and dropped out onto the grass around the top of the shaft. Unable to get close enough to safely fight the fire directly, the fire brigades forced high-expansion foam into ventilation shafts far from the fire. This created blockages that starved the fire of oxygen. By mid-afternoon the next day, the inferno was no longer burning, though the fire was by no means knocked down. Petrol continued to leak from the derailed wagons through the tunnel drainage and ballast and the vapour sporadically reignited when it came into contact with the hot tunnel lining. Two hundred people were evacuated from their homes and workplaces in Walsden in response. They were allowed back home the next day. The brigades continued to fight the fire for another two days, until West Yorkshire Fire Brigade issued the stop message just after 6:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Fire crews remained at the site until 7 January 1985. Aftermath Due to the fire, the line between and was closed. Passenger trains between two stations were replaced by buses. Of the of petrol carried by the train, were rescued by the train crew when they drove the locomotive and the first three tankers to safety. A further of petrol were recovered after the fire was extinguished, and () burnt. The damage done by the fire was minimal. Approximately half a mile of track had to be replaced, as did all the electrical services and signalling. The biggest surprise was how well the brick lining had stood up to the fire. Although some bricks in the tunnel and in the blast relief shafts had become so hot that they vitrified and ran like molten glass, most of the brickwork lining of the tunnel was scorched but still serviceable. One of the photographs taken in the aftermath shows a rail tanker directly beneath shaft 9: it is crowned with a mass of vitrified slag from bricks in the shaft that had melted and dripped down. The last of the wagons was removed from the tunnel on 1 March 1985. Once British Rail had replaced the track and electrical services, shored up the bases of vent shafts 8 and 9 and filled the two shafts with inert foam (all this took eight months), locals were allowed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to walk through the