Semi-truck ‘explosion’ in Hinkley prompts highway closure; locals question firefight delay

A semi-truck exploded on State Route 58 sometime Wednesday and continued burning for hours just west of Hinkley, prompting a hard closure by the California Highway Patrol and a late-day logjam for eastbound drivers.

Hinkley resident Christie Smith began filming the semi-truck inferno near the highway’s intersection with Wagner Road, less than five miles west of the point where Helendale Road becomes Harper Lake Road, up close at 4:25 p.m. via Facebook livestream in a private group for locals.

Another group member, whom the Daily Press couldn’t immediately reach for comment, took their own photo more than an hour earlier of what appears to be the same blaze pumping thick, black smoke into the air from a distance and posted it with a caption, “Harper lake road.”

Smith said during her stream that a California Highway Patrol unit was at the scene and filmed them briefly, but that no firefighters had arrived.

Adrian Hamilton, another Hinkley resident, told the Daily Press he heard “a loud explosion” somewhere between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Wednesday and believes the semi-truck had been burning all day. Yet, San Diego biologist Gigi Wagnon says she heard the same early-morning sound of “loud explosions” while doing surveys in this area of the High Desert, and told the Daily Press they “were sonic booms from jets flying in the area.”

The semi-truck fire still became a part of Wagnon’s day. “I was on 58 headed east about 20 cars behind the semi,” she said, which prompted her to take photos of the inferno. “Sitting in that traffic sucked!”

CHP logs show officers initially responded to a “semi truck fully engulfed” on State Route 58 and Wagner Road by closing one out of two lanes on this stretch of highway at 4:16 p.m. Wednesday, then stopped all traffic soon after due to “flames going across (lanes).”

A second CHP unit was assigned to the scene at 4:47 p.m. and arrived about nine minutes later, according to the logs, which show that one lane was reopened and traffic began moving at 6:37 p.m. while the second lane remained “closed for recovery.”

“You can smell the tires burning,” Smith remarked in her stream around 4:30 p.m. She said the traffic backup could be seen “all the way back to Kramer Junction,” which sits more than 15 miles northwest from the scene of the blaze.

“Again, still, do not see any fire department here,” Smith said about five-and-a-half minutes into the stream. “Hopefully the guy got out.”

Near the end of the stream, Smith noted “a guy walking in front of it” as a man walked along the side of the burning truck and continued moving westbound out of the frame of her video.

nullSan Bernardino County Fire Battalion Chief Mike McClintock told the Daily Press that fire crews from the area of Helendale and Barstow’s Marine Corps Logistics Base were dispatched to the highway blaze at 4:18 p.m. and arrived at 4:47 p.m. “to find a big rig well involved in fire with extension to a trailer.”

“The trailer was hauling 50,000 lbs of produce,” McClintock wrote in an email.

CHP logs show that around 5:16 p.m., officers requested a “tractor or bucket loader to help off load the produce.”

Two engines and two water tenders were deployed and extinguished the fire in about 45 minutes, he said. “Due to the large load, extensive overhaul and mop-up was required” causing fire crews to remain on scene until 6:34 p.m., after which he says County Fire turned the scene over to CHP.

The cause of the semi-truck fire remains unknown, CHP Officer Bradley Walters told the Daily Press in an email, because “usually in these incidents, our focus is on the safety of all involved and the motoring public instead of focusing our efforts to the start of the fire.”

Officers at the scene say the fire originated with the tractor before spreading to the connected trailer when the driver of the semi-truck, who had a dog in the tractor with him, “observed black smoke originating at the rear wheels of the tractor and steered to the right shoulder, off the roadway,” Walters said.

The driver and dog exited the tractor safely and sought a safe location to call 911, he continued, but a CHP officer who was already in the area observed the smoke from a distance and arrived at about 4:16 p.m. to find “the tractor to be fully engulfed in flames.”

That officer then notified CHP’s Barstow Dispatch Center, which relayed the message to dispatch fire personnel. Fire personnel arrived at about 4:43 p.m. and began to extinguish the fire, Walters said.

“The driver and dog were both in a safe location and are in good health at this time,” he said.

Charlie McGee covers California’s High Desert for the Daily Press, focusing on the city of Barstow and its surrounding communities. He is also a Report for America corps member with The GroundTruth Project, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization dedicated to supporting the next generation of journalists in the U.S. and around the world. McGee may be reached at 760-955-5341 or cmcgee@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @bycharliemcgee.

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Semi-truck ‘explosion’ in Hinkley closes STR 58 with firefight delay