A semi-trailer carrying 82,000 pounds of radioactive waste dirt caught fire on Interstate 80 Thursday morning, sparking a small field fire and closing the freeway to westbound traffic.
Firefighters were dispatched to milepost 93 on westbound I-80 on reports of a semi-trailer on fire at 7:17 a.m., according to North Tooele Fire District spokesman Ryan Willden. The cab of the semi was a total loss but none of the containers of the radioactive waste dirt were impacted or breached, and there was no threat to the public, Willden said.
The fire spread from the cab of the truck and into roadside vegetation, Willden said. Despite the damage to the cab, the driver of the semi was uninjured in the fire.
The semi-trailer was carrying soil from a federal Environmental Protection Agency cleanup site in Pennsylvania to the EnergySolutions disposal facility in Clive, according to a release from EnergySolutions. Technicians from the Clive facility were dispatched to assist with the accident and assessments indicated the waste containers were not breached.
While NTFD firefighters and Tooele County Fire Warden Dan Walton dealt with the semi-trailer fire, Utah Highway Patrol closed down westbound I-80 between Exit 99 and Exit 88. Westbound traffic used state Route 36 to state Route 138 as a detour during the closure, which was lifted by 8:11 a.m., according to a tweet from Utah Department of Transportation.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation and the driver of the semi-trailer had given no indication of where the fire may have started, according to Willden.