facebook-pixel

Spilled crude oil sparks fire on Utah highway and seeps into Strawberry Reservoir

(Photo courtesy of Wasatch County Fire District) A tanker hauling crude oil overturned and caught fire on Highway 40 in Wasatch County on Wednesday, April 4, 2018.

A trailer full of crude oil sparked a fire on a Wasatch County highway before seeping into nearby Strawberry Reservoir on Wednesday morning.

Hours later, crews were still cleaning up the mess that closed the highway for several hours. By 10 a.m., officials had just one lane open and were alternating traffic flow through the area.

By 3:40 p.m. the wreckage was cleared and the lanes were opened.

A truck driver hauling two rigs fell asleep at the wheel just after 7 a.m. on U.S. Highway 40, near mile marker 42, according to the Utah Highway Patrol. The driver started to drift off to the right of the road and then overcorrected as he woke up, which overturned one of the trailers carrying crude oil, said Wasatch County Fire District spokeswoman Janet Carson.

The driver unhooked his semi truck and the other trailer from the overturned one and escaped uninjured, Carson said.

The crude oil burst into flames in the westbound lane of the roadway and spilled into a nearby creek that feeds into Strawberry Reservoir, UHP said.

Firefighters extinguished the fire on the road and the flames that had spread to a small grassy area of about a quarter of an acre, Carson said. No injuries were reported.

A hazmat team from the company Envirocare cleaned the crash scene, as well as any crude oil that entered the waterway on Wednesday afternoon, Carson said.

The hazmat team had placed oil spill booms and curtains in the water to catch the pollutant, Carson said, nothing that as crude oil cools, it hardens like rock chunks.

Officials will need to patch the road before it can be driven on, Carson said. UHP reported that officials planned to implement a lane shift for the duration of repairs.