Highway 139 open again after semi hauling propane burned

By Paul Shockley
Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Colorado Highway 139 reopened at about 7:30 a.m. today after a semi-tractor tanker hauling 7,500 gallons of propane crashed and burned Tuesday night.

Authorities were called to mile marker 18, just inside Garfield County, around 9:20 p.m. on reports that sections of the semi-tractor were on fire after an accident involving a second vehicle. Lower Valley Fire Department Chief Frank Cavaliere described flames shooting 30 feet into the air when he arrived.

“This whole little canyon was lit up,” Cavaliere said.

There were no injuries in the initial accident between the two vehicles, while the identities of the drivers and their directions of travel, were not immediately known.

The semi-tractor laid on its side and was still thought to be in the roadway as flames licked tires, the cab area and other parts of the tangled wreck. Assembled media were allowed within several hundred yards of the scene, while Caveliere and a host of firefighters used binoculars to observe the burn but came no closer, opting to let the fuel burn off. Colorado Department of Transportation crews were at the scene around 11:30 p.m., assessing possible damage to the roadway caused by the blaze’s heat.

The semi-tractor’s tank had apparently ruptured during the crash, which relieved pressure inside the tank, likely preventing a single large explosion, Caveliere said.

A roughly 30-mile section of Highway 139 was closed several hours, from just north of Loma and extending to mile marker 37.5, which is on the Rangely side of Douglas Pass.

Aside from Lower Valley Fire, personnel from the Grand Junction Fire Department, including the department’s hazardous materials team, were called to the scene.