Fiery Crash Snarls 91 Freeway in Fullerton; 6 Hurt

Six people were injured and a section of the Riverside Freeway in Fullerton was closed for 3 1/2 hours Tuesday by a fiery crash involving two huge truck rigs, three cars and a pickup truck.

Fuel leaking from one rig was set afire by sparks, and 70-foot-high flames demolished three vehicles, sending smoke billowing over the freeway. No one was burned, however, and all of the injuries were minor, officials reported.

The chain-reaction accident occurred about 12:30 p.m., according to California Highway Patrol spokesman Paul Caldwell and other CHP officials, when a car driven by Patrice Pecora, 24, of Anaheim entered the freeway, California 91, in the eastbound lanes at Magnolia Street. Pecora apparently misjudged the speed of a tractor-trailer in the slow lane being driven by Charles Cooley, 63, of Baldwin Park, causing the front bumpers of the two vehicles to scrape against each other.

Cooley told the CHP that to avoid colliding with Pecora’s car, he veered to his left and grazed the right rear of a car driven by Raymond Burroughs, 17, of Cypress.

Following Burroughs in the center lane was a car driven by James Norris, 26, of La Palma. Norris’ car was struck on the right side by Cooley’s truck, Caldwell said, and pushed into the side of a tractor-trailer in the fast lane driven by Ralph Benavides, 43, of Fontana.

Benavides’ rig was hit from the rear by a pickup driven by Duncan Keller, 18, of Downey, Caldwell said. He said Pecora and Burroughs were able to drive their cars onto the right shoulder of the freeway, while Keller drove his pickup onto the left shoulder. On the roadway, the fuel tank of one tractor-trailer split apart, spilling diesel fuel that was ignited by a spark, Caldwell said.

Cooley and Benavides jumped from their tractor-trailers, and Norris raced away from his car in the center lane. Seconds later, their vehicles were enveloped in 70-foot-high flames that destroyed them, Caldwell said.

The drivers of the six vehicles involved suffered only minor sprains, cuts and bruises but were taken by Fullerton Fire Department paramedics to Martin Luther Hospital Medical Center in Anaheim, Fullerton Battalion Chief Mark Martin said. A spokeswoman for the hospital declined to release information about the victims.

Eastbound traffic did not come to a complete standstill on the Riverside Freeway because cars and trucks were detoured onto the nearby southbound lanes of the Santa Ana Freeway, Caldwell said. After the burned-out hulks of the two tractor-trailers and Norris’ car, which had been lodged between them, were removed, the eastbound lanes were reopened about 4 p.m., Caldwell said.

Witnesses said they heard two explosions about 12:30 p.m. and then saw billowing flames and smoke that blackened the sky. “I thought at first it was a sonic boom,” said Donna Maeseele, whose Buckingham Avenue house is near the entrance to the freeway. “The second explosion was not as loud.”

Maeseele, who was eating lunch at the time, said she ran out of her house and spotted the smoke rising from the freeway: “You could hear the people putting on their brakes real fast. There were a lot of sirens, and everybody came running out of their houses to take a look at what was happening.”

Other details of the accident were not immediately available. Caldwell said the accident is under investigation.