Street sweeper catches fire on 710 Freeway, prompting full closure, evacuations
The natural gas in a street sweeper caught fire on the northbound 710 Freeway in Bell early Friday, briefly prompting a full freeway shutdown.
The strange chain of events started with a collision at about 11:48 p.m. Thursday that required a street sweeper to clean up oil from freeway lanes that spilled from a big rig. The street sweeper caught up one of the burning flares that the CHP had placed in the roadway, which caught the sweeper on fire, according to Caltrans
According to Caltrans, the California Department of Transportation lost the ability to use diesel street sweepers in the jurisdiction of the South Coast Air Quality Management District last year. So Caltrans began using sweepers powered by compressed natural gas, which can be explosive.
The CHP was so concerned about the potential for the sweeper to explode, that they briefly shut down both sides of the freeway and physically took people out of their vehicles, to walk further back and away from the fire. Once the danger passed, people were allowed to walk back to their vehicles and get back in.
Most of the freeway has since reopened, but just one lane on the northbound side was open at 5 a.m., causing a major backup. All lanes of the northbound freeway were reopened at about 8 a.m.
One person was taken to the hospital to be checked out for minor injuries.
