Before and After Semi-truck fire...

[AJMD429]

90 minute delay in traffic today.... Thankfully nobody was hurt.

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I've never seen such a thing. It looks like the tractor part of the vehicle is just completely GONE...!

I believe the tank was filled with asphalt, at least according to the news. The smoke was black enough it makes sense. Maybe all that flaming asphalt just move forward and burnt up the tractor...?

[Old Savage]

One of my dad’s businesses sold a product called liquid asphalt. Could explode and tear up a rig, mineral spirits of some sort made it liquid.

[jeepnik]

Easy to read this one, if you’re a former firefighter that then worked in refining making asphalt.

Cab caught fire. Could have been electrical or brakes. Tractors are mostly plastic and aluminum these days so they pretty much burn (plastic parts with lots of black smoke) and melt (aluminum parts). The parts you see left are likely steel.

Now the trailer is an insulated tank, thus you see the inner tank and the outer shell that sandwich the insulation. Both inner and outer can be either steel or aluminum this one looks like aluminum for both.

The tractor fire was hot enough to melt the inner and outer tanks allowing the asphalt in that compartment to leak out. Now the asphalt depending on the grade may have caught fire or it may not. The leaking asphalt might actually have reduced the amount of the tank that melted.

The liquid asphalt is a misnomer. Asphalt is a thick hydrocarbon that is liquid at high temperatures. What most folks think of “asphalt” is this liquid mixed with gravel. Again there are different types depending on its intended use.

What OS called liquid asphalt is known as an emulsion. Asphalt mixed with water and an emulsifier. Think of the stuff spread on parking lots. Temperature control during production is very important to prevent serious expansion of the water. Things go boom and black stuff goes everywhere.

One more common problem is a tank truck “boiling over”. They haul an emulsion in the tank. Then out of laziness don’t properly flush out the tank. The very hot asphalt is loaded and when it hit the emulsion the water boils and black stuuf goes out the loading hatch. Sometimes slowly, sometimes like Mt St Helens.

[piller]

Physical Chemistry can be such fun to see in action.

[AJMD429]

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According to the news the initiating event was a blown tire then an impact into a concrete lane divider, so maybe that tore into a fuel tank and started the blaze. Amazing how hot it must have gotten to not leave anything above the frame.

FWIW the initial smoke right when it started (I was close enough to see the initial smoke start up but the wreck had already happened) was thick and black and rising really FAST in a narrow column; looked like something coming out of a really hot chimney.

Glad the driver got out. Probably had someone hogtied in the passenger seat who had dirt on the Clintons.