Truck Fire South of the Railroad Tracks
Tuesday evening, September 10, Fairbury Rural Fire was dispatched to a reported propane tank on fire on F Street, south of the Jefferson County Law Enforcement Center and just south of the tracks.
Fire personnel were on scene within minutes and advised this was a small cylinder on the back of a pickup. The fire had just begun extending into the cab of the pickup. The heat caused glass to shatter. Flames soon reached the vehicles electrical system, which caused the horn to blare the entire time firefighters battled the blaze. It did not stop until the fire was out.
The first engine arrived within nine minutes from the 911 call.
According to Fire Chief Judd Stewart, who was incident commander, “Crews advanced an attack line and setup a defensive cooling operation from a safe distance until the situation was deemed safe enough to approach. Interviews with the reporting party helped determine it was the contents of torch cylinders that were burning. Once the contents of the cylinders were depleted, transition was made to an offensive attack to extinguish the vehicle and remaining hotspots.”
The fire was knocked down within 20 minutes of the 911 call. Fire crews were sent into an adjacent building to look for possible extension and none was found.
Due to the location of the fire, all Union Pacific traffic was halted until the scene was stabilized.
Once the blaze was extinguished, a tow truck was used to move the vehicle back across the railroad tracks, where final overhaul and investigation was completed. This allowed train traffic to resume.
Per Stewart, the cause of the fire was determined to be a spark from torch operations that burned through the acetylene hose, thus causing a fire. The heat from the fire caused the oxygen hose to fail, increasing the intensity of the fire. The intense fire then spread to the interior of the vehicle.
The vehicle was considered a total loss.
There were 12 firefighters on scene to contain and extinguish the fire. Fairbury Utilities were also called to scene to assess overhead utilities. Traffic control was provided by Jefferson County Sheriff’s office.
There were no injuries to firefighters or members of the public.
