Gundagai Fire Crews responded to a truck fire on the Hume Highway on Monday night, where the blaze was called in just past Wagga Hill. It was discovered the load contained ammunition. Image NSW Fire & Rescue
On Monday 31 March at 9:45pm, Gundagai Fire crews were called to assist the Rural Fire Service with a reported truck fire on the Hume Highway, north of the Sturt Highway.
On arrival, crews found a B-double with the B-trailer well alight. Thankfully, the driver was able to detach the prime mover and A-trailer, preventing the further spread of the fire.
Andrew Brock, Deputy Captain of Gundagai Fire and Rescue, said the blaze burned for a couple of hours and Gundagai fire crews remained on the scene for some time assisting with salvage operations.
“The fire was called in by a member of the public at the rest area in Wagga Hill. Initially, we couldn’t find the driver, but he had unhooked the prime mover.”
“Our usual process is trying to find out what’s in the load. So, it was reported as general cargo, and we tried to get hold of the manifest from the driver. After some searching the driver made himself available and that is when we discovered that they had ammunition on the trailer,” Andrew said.
“So, this just adds another complexity to the incident. Obviously, keeping everybody safe is the priority, so we basically just had to let the fire go through its processes to cook off the ammunition,” Andrew said.
Andrew said from there they requested more RFS units to assist.
“Our tanker was also attached to the job, so we had both trucks out of Gundagai and once we felt that it was safe enough to return to firefighting duties, then we got all crews involved trying to extinguish it.”
“The positive was that the truck had been able to pull into the northbound rest area, so there was minimal disruption to traffic. Initially, there was a lot of thick smoke, but the police arrived, and we continued doing the firefighting side of things until it was finally extinguished.”
“Heavy haulage then arrived and began the process of pulling the load completely apart so we could get right into the hotspots.”
“Thankfully, no one was injured,” Andrew said.
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