A 21-year old truck driver is lucky to be alive after his cargo of highly flammable materials caught alight on the Hume Highway 3km outside Gundagai last night.
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The incident occurred at 8:30pm on Tuesday July 11 after a B double truck carrying a load of toilet tissue and other paper materials suffered a front tyre burst, causing a spark to ignite the oil well.
According to Cootamundra LAC commander Detective Inspector Scott Wilkinson, the South Australian man noticed the flame while inspecting his damaged tyre and attempted to use his cabin extinguisher.
“The man grabbed his extinguisher which failed and flames spread to the cabin shortly after,” Detective Inspector Scott Wilkinson said.
“The fire then engulfed other parts of the vehicle before spreading to the trailers.
“Naturally, this created problems due to the highly flammable nature of the cargo.”
Detective Inspector Scott Wilkinson said firefighters were still attending the scene on Wednesday afternoon.
