Fortunately no one was killed, and only one injury required hospitalization.
It appears that both the train and the fire truck had traffic preemption devices - which normally gives them the green light. I doubt that both got a green, but both probably assumed that they did. It’ll be a hard one to sort out - traffic lights don’t log what time they changed, plus it’s not likely there was any videotape running at the time. You can bet they’ll be taking a close look at how that and similar rail/street intersection signals are set up.
And you can’t always rely on witness statements. Last night I worked an accident after which one of the vehicle occupants referred to the “green light.” The traffic control device in question is flashing - red for one direction, amber the other…
A recreation of the accident showed that the fire truck should have had a green, and MAX should have had a red block, but the LRV may have already passed the signal when the interrupt kicked in.
Bottom line? Both had the right-of-way as far as they knew, and neither did anything wrong or negligent. Another case of technology showing it’s imperfections.
Train hit the fire truck dead center and nearly killed one fireman. Law states that the fire truck had the right-of-way. So, unless the pre-emption device failed, which it did not, doesn’t matter who did what when. Train driver is at fault no questions asked. Shoot first. Ask never.