Lexington, SC (WLTX) - A tanker truck crashed--then caught fire--on Interstate 26 Wednesday, leading to a mess for commuters in the Columbia area that lasted for hours.
Just before 4 p.m., the South Carolina Department of Transportation and the Highway Patrol announced that all lanes of I-26 East were reopening. Those lanes had been either closed or partially closed for 10 hours.
The wreck happened around 5:45 in the morning in the eastbound lanes of I-26 between Exit 104 and 106, which are the Saint Andrew Road and Piney Grove Road exits.
It's believed as least 10 total vehicles were involved in the accident. After the tractor-trailer crashed, some of the 8,500 gallons of fuel it was carrying spilled into a drainage pipe and caught fire, sending flames as high as 50 feet in the air. The blaze engulfed several other vehicles.
Investigators say multiple people were transported to the hospital, but there were no fatalities.
The heat from the fire caused severe damage to the median barrier and several sections of the pavement, and crews are making emergency repairs to the road. Further work will be have to be done in that area in the coming weeks.
In fact, the heat was so intense it made for a bit of a hazard for the emergency personnel who initially arrived at the scene.
"Right beside us is a fireworks store, and if that had ignited, it would have been a catastrophe," said Lance Corporal David Jones with the South Carolina Highway Patrol. "We owe a lot of credit to the firefighters who came out here and risked their lives to battle this blaze they make our job safer."
A woman who said her husband was caught up in the collision described to News19 what her husband told her. "It was a chain reaction, and he just knew that something was going to hit him and he kept on going. And before his car was even hit it was engulfed in flames."
Some of the fuel spilled into a nearby ditch, and the Department of Health and Environmental Control is on the scene to examine if that is posing a health hazard.
What caused the accident is not yet known.
"When you look at upwards of 10 vehicles involved in a collision, several of them were completely engulfed, so it's something that's going to take some time to investigate, and it's something that we're not going to rush," said Jones.
A store owner near the crash described walking out of his business, feeling the intense heat from the flames, and deciding to go back inside.
For about three hours, lanes in all directions were closed, but the westbound lanes began reopening around 9 a.m., and by noon, traffic was flowing out of the city normally. Around 1:30 p.m., one lane of I-26 east was reopened.
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