Gasoline tanker crashes, explodes

ELMA — A tanker truck carrying 11,000 gallons of gasoline swerved off a highway in Grays Harbor County on Thursday morning, landing upside down and exploding in a fireball that burned for hours.

The truck driver was killed; no one else was injured.

"It sounds like the semi-truck crossed the median and went down the hill in flames," Washington State Patrol spokesman Johnny Alexander told The Associated Press.

The fire consumed the truck’s tanker and the trailer it was towing, State Patrol spokesman Glen Tyrrell said.

"There’s nothing left of the trailer, except for a little bit of chassis," he said.

The State Patrol tentatively identified the driver as a 27-year-old Auburn man, but Tyrrell said positive identification would be made by the Grays Harbor County Medical Examiner’s Office.

The blaze was powerful enough that fire crews stood back and let it burn, Tyrrell said.

"All the gasoline stayed pretty contained and burned, which is a good thing," said Sandy Howard, spokeswoman for the state Department of Ecology, which sent a spill-response team.

No other vehicles were involved in the accident, which happened about 6:45 a.m. on an eastbound lane of Highway 8 near the county fairgrounds, about 25 miles west of Olympia.

The truck, which Tyrrell said was owned by Reinhard Petroleum, had been traveling from Tacoma to Aberdeen.

Phil Dorr, company operations manager, declined comment Thursday on the accident, the driver, or the company, which is based in Pacific, 10 miles east of Tacoma.

The highway’s two westbound lanes reopened several hours after the crash, Tyrrell said. One of the eastbound lanes reopened by noon; the second reopened shortly before 5 p.m.

The cause of the crash remained under investigation.

Witnesses told Seattle’s KOMO-TV that roads in the Elma area were icy early Thursday.

Associated Press