Burning Chemicals Aboard Truck Force 1 1/2-Hour Closure of Northbound I-805

A truck with burning chemicals brought noontime traffic to a standstill on northbound Interstate 805 Thursday, causing a backup that stretched for several miles south from the California 52 interchange.

The driver of the flatbed truck told firefighters that he spotted the fire about 11:45 a.m. when he looked in a side-view mirror. He stopped on the shoulder of I-805 just north of California 52 and tried to put the fire out with an extinguisher. A passing motorist used his cellular phone to summon firefighters.

California Highway Patrol officers diverted traffic on northbound I-805 onto westbound California 52, while firefighters stood by and watched the truck burn.

“It was a precautionary measure,” San Diego Fire Capt. Ron Cervantes said. “We weren’t sure what kind of chemicals might be in the truck, and it’s hard to tell once the containers are all burned up, so the chief officer made the decision at the scene to just let it burn.”

Certain chemicals such as calcium carbonate or magnesium must be extinguished with dry powder, Cervantes explained, and water might only worsen the fire.

Extinguished With Foam

After the fire had burned for 40 minutes, firefighters stepped in and extinguished the flames with chemical foam.

The driver of the truck, from Kettenburg Marine in San Diego, said he was carrying boat supplies but was uncertain what chemicals were on the truck, Cervantes said. “He claimed it was spontaneous combustion, but it’s under investigation by our department,” Cervantes said.

It was eventually determined that the truck was carrying nine 50-gallon drums of polymer resin, a 50-gallon drum of paint, eight 5-gallon cans of acetone, and a 5-gallon can of methyl ethyl ketone, which is a peroxide, according to Fire Department spokeswoman Lonnie Hider Kitsh.

Hazardous materials teams were dispatched to the scene, and Caltrans crews blocked nearby storm drains with sandbags to prevent the chemicals from running down the drains, Kitsh said.

Sparks from the burning truck also touched off a three-acre brush fire next to the freeway. The brush fire took an hour to extinguish, Cervantes said.

The fire was out and the freeway was reopened to traffic about 1:30 p.m., CHP dispatcher Mike Collier said.

Kitsh said it is unlikely that passing motorists were subjected to any toxic fumes because the smoke from the fire was blowing away from the road, over an open canyon in the Miramar area.

“It definitely was very toxic,” she said, “but where the truck stopped it was just open land, and the smoke dissipated pretty readily. We were lucky in that regard. If it was a city street, we would have had to evacuate and it would have caused all kinds of problems.”