Eugene, OR : Driver died in his vehicle in wreck that ignited fuel tanker on Highway 58 Saturday, police say on Saturday, 1st October 2016
Police confirmed Monday that a Lakeview truck driver died Saturday night in a fiery fuel tanker crash on Highway 58 west of Oakridge.
Kevin W. Smith, 62, was driving a truck pulling two fuel tankers east on Highway 58 when it veered off the right shoulder 9 miles east of Dexter, Oregon State Police said. The tankers contained 10,000 gallons of an unspecified fuel; one of the tankers overturned during the crash and caught fire.
Police said Monday that the rig “became fully engulfed in flames, and information indicates that Smith was unable to exit the vehicle.”
The fire burned for at least three hours.
Authorities on Monday did not give a reason for the delay in releasing the information about the crash, fatality, fire and spill.
Oregon State Police and emergency crews were dispatched at 10:40 p.m. Saturday to the crash along Lookout Point Lake between Lowell and Oakridge. The highway separates the lake from the ditch where the tanker overturned.
Department of Environmental Quality crews worked to determine how much groundwater and soil contamination resulted from the release of an estimated 10,000 gallons of fuel, which either burned or spilled, said Geoffrey Brown, an on-scene coordinator for DEQ.
The semi was hauling 4,700 gallons of gasoline and 6,000 gallons of diesel fuel, according to Angela Beers Seydel of the Oregon Department of Transportation. She said both caught fire, and it isn’t known which tanker overturned.
In a statement issued Monday afternoon, transportation officials said they expected the eastbound lane to be closed for at least a week as crews clean up and repair the damaged roadway. Crews will work between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m., with flaggers and a pilot car directing traffic, the statement said.
By 11 a.m. Monday, more than 100 cubic yards of contaminated soil had been dug up and trucked to a landfill, Brown said.
More soil was excavated throughout the day, and soil in the ditch will be tested to see whether the fuel seeped under the roadway. There are no signs yet that the reservoir was contaminated, Brown said, but crews are keeping an eye on the water.
The highway was closed for about seven hours while fire crews extinguished the fire and investigators completed a reconstruction of the crash scene.
The Department of Transportation diverted traffic into one lane around the area, and signs as far away as Interstate 5 north of Eugene warned motorists to expect delays near the crash site.Crash scene investigators still were working Monday morning to determine the cause of the crash.
Source :
Driver died in his vehicle in wreck that ignited fuel tanker on Highway 58