“I wasn’t losing air, but I could hear air hissing out,” he said. “I couldn’t pull over in the construction zone.”
When Clarke managed to pull over after the Ohio 122 interchange near Middletown, just south of the Hendrickson Road overpass, he found one of his tires deflated and a fire ablaze near the truck’s cabin and in the front portion of the 40-foot container, he said.
He tried to extinguish the fire with an on-board fire extinguisher.
“The fire extinguisher is only that big,” he said, gesturing to the foot-long size of the device. “It didn’t do squat.”
The truck was fully engulfed, said Turtlecreek Twp. Fire Chief Steve Flint, and it took about 30 to 40 minutes to put out the fire.
“It was going pretty good,” Flint said. “It started in around the rear wheels of the drive tractor and into the trailer.”
Given that he was hauling flammable cargo, Clarke said he moved out of the way as fast as he could.
“It (the fire) was right beside my fuel tanks and whiskey is going to up (in flames) really quick,” Clarke said.
None of his fuel tanks caught fire and half the load went up in smoke.
Clarke was uninjured and was not taken to an area hospital. His deadline to arrive in Alabama is Friday morning and his company, Grant Transport, based out of New Hamburg, Ontario, will be sending another truck to complete the haul.
Only one lane of southbound traffic was open since the initial call came in to authorities at approximately 6 a.m., according to Ohio State Highway Patrol Trooper Todd Bailey.
Authorities reopened another lane at approximately 7:50 a.m.
Middletown and Turtlecreek Twp. fire departments assisted in extinguishing the blaze, Bailey said.
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