Local News

Fiery Tanker Crash North of Madras Kills One

A fiery tanker crash on Highway 26 near Warm Springs closed the highway in both directions for a while this morning. Emergency workers say the tanker truck left Highway 26, hit an object and exploded. The accident also touched off a small wildland fire. ODOT's Peter Murphy describes what happened: “A tanker truck left the highway and it collided with something. Right now I don’t know what that was. As it hit that object, it exploded and burst into flames. I guess it had gas, aviation fuel on board, which is pretty volatile. Once it gets going, it gets pretty hot. And so the truck became fully engulfed. And in addition to that, it caused a small fire in the wild land. Traffic was stalled for hours and smoke could be seen throughout the area.” Delson Suppah works at a radio station and saw the smoke from the station: “It was going pretty well, you could see black smoke out of there for a long time.” Local fire crews were able to quickly douse the flames of the wildland fire. Late reports indicate apparently the tanker truck driver perished in the crash.

 

 

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