Tanker Driver Dies After Collision, Fire on Simi Valley Freeway

An out-of-control gasoline tanker, already sprouting flames, plunged over the center divider on the Simi Valley Freeway on Wednesday and collided with an oncoming truck, killing the fuel truck driver in a towering fireball visible throughout much of the northwestern San Fernando Valley.

The driver of the second truck fled for his life seconds ahead of the conflagration. A 33-year-old woman--whose van may have set off the events that led to the inferno, the California Highway Patrol said--was in critical condition at West Hills Regional Medical Center.

Closing the freeway during the rain-slowed evening rush hour generated a traffic jam that stretched for miles hours after the accident. Re-routed commuters urgently seeking a way around the closure snarled traffic on surface streets throughout the northwestern Valley.

CHP Officer Bruce Ferrier said the accident apparently occurred at about 12:30 p.m., when the woman driving the van entered the westbound lanes of the freeway at DeSoto Avenue. Ferrier said the woman may have been “going too fast” and may have alarmed the driver of the Mobil Oil tanker truck.

The van crashed into a guardrail, Ferrier said.

The tanker truck driver “might have overreacted and then lost control . . . and then hit the center divider,” Ferrier said. The surface of the road, slippery after more than a day of rain, probably added to the driver’s problems, Ferrier said.

Andrell Hunter, 26, of Long Beach, who was driving east in a stake truck loaded with toilets, said flames were visible on the fuel truck as it crossed the freeway divider and headed his way.

His brakes locked as he tried to stop, then his skidding truck slammed broadside into the tanker, Hunter said.

He leaped out and ran. “When I jumped out, the tanker was already in flames,” Hunter said. “So I just ran.”

Seconds later, the fuel truck exploded in a fireball. Hunter said there was no hope of saving the other driver.

“The heat was too intense for me to head up to the truck,” he said, gazing at the smoldering wreckage about 30 minutes after the crash. “I was blessed . . . truly blessed to get out of there.”

“It looked like there were a bunch of fires,” said Carl Brunst of Riverside, who had just exited the freeway at DeSoto. “You could feel the heat.”

Coroner’s officials took the body of the Mobil truck driver, who was burned beyond recognition, they said.

A spokesman for West Hills Regional Medical Center said the family of the injured woman requested that no information about her be made public.

The westbound lanes of the Simi Valley Freeway were closed from Tampa Avenue to DeSoto Avenue until about 7 p.m. The eastbound lanes, closed from Topanga Canyon Boulevard to DeSoto, remained closed late into the night, the CHP said, as crews cleaned spilled fuel and other debris.

Wednesday’s tanker accident was the second in the area this month. On Dec. 3, Carlos Alonzo Jr., 33, was killed when his tanker truck, carrying more than 8,000 gallons of gasoline, jackknifed off California 33 near the Ventura Freeway in Ventura and burst into flames.