Smoky Track Fire Strands Riders on 2 Trains on Manhattan Bridge

A track fire sent smoke billowing through a subway tunnel in Downtown Brooklyn during the evening rush yesterday, halting two subway trains carrying nearly 4,000 passengers, who had to be led to safety on the Manhattan Bridge.

At least 25 people received minor injuries, including 10 passengers and three firefighters who were treated at hospitals for smoke inhalation, the authorities said.

Subway and car traffic between Brooklyn and Manhattan was snarled for hours.

The fire, caused by debris on the tracks, broke out around 900 feet from the Manhattan Bridge in a tunnel north of the De Kalb Avenue station. At 6:19 p.m., the authorities said, the train operator at the front of a Brooklyn-bound B train approaching the station noticed the fire, stopped the train and called his dispatcher, who contacted the Fire Department.

Three of the B train’s 10 cars were in the smoke-filled tunnel, and the rest were on the bridge. An eight-car D train, behind the B train on the bridge, also stopped. Both trains were full of passengers, many of whom watched as firefighters began evacuating the trains.

The passengers said they tried to stay calm, but were confused by a lack of instructions. “They’re not telling us whether we’re getting off or staying on, and that’s where the panic really set in,” said Danilo Ignacio, 31, who was on the B train. After power was shut off to allow the firefighters to work, the train got hot. “Like a can of sardines being cooked,” he said.

A passenger on the D train, Esfir Skarbo, 61, said that most of the people in her car started using their cellphones. “They didn’t know what to do,” she said. “Everybody called home. Everybody was on the phone.”

The evacuations were highly unusual, occurring as they did on one of the two East River bridges that are shared by subways, cars, bicyclists and pedestrians. The Manhattan Bridge is used by the B, D, N and Q lines. Other subway lines run on the Williamsburg Bridge.

“It was a difficult and slow operation,” a fire official, Assistant Chief James Esposito, said last night in a news conference on the bridge, describing the evacuation.

The three traffic lanes on the lower level of the Manhattan Bridge were closed so they could be used for the evacuation.

Passengers left the B train by the last car and the D train from the front car and some side doors. Many needed stepladders and were assisted by rescue workers. One firefighter passed a toddler and then a stroller off the D train and into the hands of another firefighter.

More than 100 firefighters and emergency medical workers were called to the fire. Although it was declared under control at 7:55 p.m., a third alarm was sounded at 8:09 p.m., summoning additional firefighters to relieve exhausted colleagues and to assist with the train evacuations. The last passengers to be evacuated walked off the bridge around 8:40 p.m., after being stranded for more than two hours.

Fire marshals determined that the fire was accidental. “There was no malicious intent,” Chief Esposito said. Investigators found rubbish and cigarette butts around the source of the fire and suspected that homeless people might have spent time at the site, he said.

Many passengers said that being stuck in a train for hours on a bridge over the East River was unnerving.

“I was trying to keep the people calm,” said Pat Giganti, 64, a legal secretary from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, who was on the D train. “We had one guy going, ‘Open the door. Open the door.’ I was like, ‘No. You wait.’ ”

The man she identified as being impatient was P. J. Dooley, 59, a part-time messenger who also lives in Bay Ridge. Mr. Dooley said that some passengers nervously wondered whether foul play might have been involved.

Paul J. Fleuranges, a spokesman for New York City Transit, the arm of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that operates the subways, said that power was restored to the affected subway lines at 9:02 p.m. and that full service was restored at 9:25. For three hours, service on the B, D, F, V and Q lines had been rerouted or suspended.

The Manhattan Bridge, opened in 1909, underwent extensive renovations starting in 1986 that reduced the number of subway tracks in use. All tracks were reopened in 2004.

Although track fires in the subway tunnels are a routine occurrence, they rarely cause injuries or major disruptions. In March 1999, however, a fire near the Bergen Street station in Brooklyn, on the F and G lines, damaged a control room, and in January 2005, a fire in a signal relay room near the Chambers Street station in Lower Manhattan crippled service on the A and C lines for several weeks.

The long wait to be evacuated took a heavy toll on many passengers.

Shamsa Qureshi, 54, a B train passenger, who was treated for smoke inhalation at Brooklyn Hospital Center, said she fainted in her subway car as it was being evacuated. She was lifted out of the train by police officers and taken on a stretcher to an ambulance.

“I can’t breathe,” said Ms. Qureshi, a pharmacy manager who works in the Bronx and lives in Coney Island. “I can’t see anything. I fainted.”

Ms. Qureshi said the evacuation brought back memories of the August 2003 blackout. “I suffered a lot that day,” she said. “I think that was the pressure on my mind,” she said.

Tania Perez, 29, of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, said that “people were sweating — dripping with sweat.” She said she could still see and smell smoke from the tunnel after an hour stuck on the D train.

Shimmy Schaff, 34, of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, said he saw a woman faint in his car on the D train.

Christina Liviakis, 28, of Marine Park, Brooklyn, said her car was being evacuated when a man excused himself and walked quickly to the back of the car to relieve himself. “It was the most civilized public urination I’ve ever seen in my life,” she said.