HALIFAX -- A commercial truck carrying more than 1,000 20-pound propane tanks caught fire in Debert, N.S., Sunday evening.
The driver and his passenger fled from the vehicle after the driver noticed the back section of the truck was on fire. They weren’t injured.
Several fire departments responded to the scene on Plains Road around 10:20 p.m.
“Even leaving the village I could see the red in the sky, which wasn’t going to be good,” said Debert Fire Chief Shane Slack.
One area resident told CTV News he could hear the explosions from the propane tanks from several kilometres away.
With 1,080 propane tanks loaded on the truck, Slack says it made for a very dangerous situation.
“It was like fireworks going off,” said Slack. “Probably 50-to-70-foot flames above truck with propane cylinders discharging left, right, into the woods, and forward, towards our location, so we pushed back about a half a kilometre.”
It took more than an hour to get the tanks cool enough so that crews could safely attack the blaze.
“Once we got that down and the flame kind of tapered down we moved the big guns in and we flooded her, got her extinguished,” said Slack. “For another half hour we just doused her, heavy water to keep the tanks cool.”
Small fires started on both sides of the road, but they were contained to about 150 feet into the woods, and were eventually extinguished.
Slack says it’s possible the brakes or an axle may have caused the fire.
Hundreds of charred propane tanks still littered Plains Road on Monday.
Crews have been working to remove the tanks and burned-out tank.
A section of Plains Road remained closed to traffic Monday as the cleanup continued.
The scene was expected to be cleared around 5 p.m.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Carl Pomeroy
