A fire damaged a railroad bridge in Lehigh Gorge State Park Tuesday afternoon.

The fire broke out around 12:45 p.m. while a crew was doing maintenance on the bridge over the Lehigh River in Lehigh Township, Carbon County.

The fire took place just east of the center of the bridge and caused extensive damage to some of the bridge planks.

The bridge has two tracks, but only one which is used by trains. The damage appeared to be isolated to the inactive side of the bridge.

The fire began when workers were working on the tracks using a railgrinding train, according to Tim Rossman, fire chief of Lehigh and Lausanne Rural Fire Co.

“It’s a normal maintenance thing that they do. For some reason that section of the bridge caught fire,” Rossman said.

Rossman said he met with railroad workers at the scene. The workers told him the bridge was closed to trains at the time while railgrinding was taking place. There were conflicting reports of which railroad owned the bridge.

There are no public roadways reaching the fire. L&L had to drive their firetruck from the park’s Rockport Access along the Delaware and Lehigh rail trail, a distance of about 7 miles.

Via the Delaware and Lehigh rail trail, the bridge is located eight miles north of Jim Thorpe.

Firefighters from the Jim Thorpe Fire Department, and DCNR-Forestry responded and the railroad brought their firefighting equipment.

Around 5 p.m., Lehigh and Lausanne responded to a second fire which broke out during rail grinding, but not on a bridge. The second fire occurred about a mile south of Rockport Access on the east bank of the river.

Rossman said when they reached the scene, Reading Blue Mountain & Northern workers said they would use their own equipment because there was no way for a firetruck to reach the fire.