ANTELOPE (CBS13) – A train engine caught fire in Antelope on Tuesday morning, but it wasn’t the car itself that had firefighters worried.

The fire started at around 4 a.m. Firefighters said they had to work quickly to put the fire out considering what materials were nearby.

“But what’s around it is was what was of concern to us — what was in those rail cars next to it,” said Brian Shannon, a firefighter with the Sacramento Metro Fire Dept. “There was 200,000 pounds of potassium sulfate next to that locomotive…that was basically our concern.”

Firefighters were able to put the fire out before it spread to the adjacent train cars. Although non-flammable, potassium sulfate spilling on the tracks would have caused a messy hazmat situation.