A lithium battery fire on California’s I-15 left drivers stranded for hours in the blazing heat on Saturday.
Heat on the highway reached as high as 109-degrees on Saturday as “authorities struggled to extinguish a fire involving a truck carrying lithium ion batteries that had overturned on Friday,” reported the New York Times.
Emergency services received calls around 6:30 a.m. local time about a truck that had crashed near Baker, Calif., in the northbound lanes of I-15, a major highway that leads travelers to Las Vegas.
The northbound lanes were closed beginning at 8:30 a.m., and the southbound lanes at 9 a.m. The southbound lanes reopened shortly after 2:30 p.m. on Friday, according to the California Highway Patrol.
The northbound lanes remained closed as of 5 p.m. on Saturday, according to the California Department of Transportation.
The California Highway Patrol (CHP) cleared the backlog of vehicles by rerouting them to highway I-40, which caused heavy traffic.
The San Bernardino County Fire Protection District said it made multiple attempts to clear the wreckage but were unable to do so due to the massive weight of the vehicle.
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FDNY via Storyful“Multiple attempts were made to move the container from the freeway shoulder to open land using heavy equipment from the County Fire’s Special Operations Division, including an excavator and a dozer,” it said. “Ground improvements and grading were completed in preparation for relocating the container to a safe area for long-term mitigation and cleanup.
However, the container’s weight, exceeding 75,000 pounds, has made these efforts unsuccessful so far.”
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The division said it will be monitoring the air quality.
“The primary concern is the air quality due to the hazardous materials and chemicals involved. Air monitoring is assessing for hydrogen cyanide, chlorine, and sulfur dioxide. These chemicals pose significant health risks at elevated levels, with hydrogen cyanide and chlorine being particularly dangerous even at low concentrations,” it said.
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