Mobile River Barge Fire Burns Into the Night
By Rick McCann
Blue RAM Media/Gulf Coast News
January 13, 2026
MOBILE, AL. During the early part of Monday morning, heavy smoke could be seen coming from the Mobile River area near the Cochrane-Africatown Bridge.
On closer inspection, we saw that a barge was on fire and that the Mobile-Fire Rescue boat was on scene and beginning to fight the fire, soon followed by several other agencies including the United States Coast Guard.
From nearby cameras we could see that the barge soon became engulfed in flames and the at around 1:17 p.m., the Coast Guard advised that the Mobile shipping channel was closed to all traffic from mile marker 2 to mile marker 4 because of the fire.
Police and EMS were also dispatched to the area and stood by on land.
The barge which was carrying scrapped vehicles continued to burn bright into the night.
The U.S. Coast Guard set up a safety zone to ensure that no entered the area of the barge fire.
The USCG said that they did not have a cause of the fire that they would be investigating it.
Some toxic smoke was seen near parts of Mobile but there were no reports of injuries or sickness on water or on land.
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