SAN FRANCISCO—A fire to a tractor-trailer near Portola District was reported on Wednesday, February 25 on southbound of Highway United States (U.S.) 101, which occurred on southbound of Interstate 280, near Third Street/Cow Palace off-ramp.
A fire was first reported to the California Highway Patrol. The load from an 18-wheeler rig dump trailer truck with a red cab and a white trailer, which contained scrap metal was consumed in flames, south of Interstate 280.
There were massive traffic delays because the California Highway Patrol issued a hard closure, which blocked off four out of five southbound lanes with the exception of the fast #1 lane being opened for peak emergency response team. The truck was filled with metal scrap, which complicated firefighting efforts. In order to quickly and expediently put out the fire, firefighters had to remove metal scraps to extinguish the blaze.
By 12:20 p.m., the fire was extinguished by firefighters from the San Francisco Fire Department. The cleanup crews started the process of removing debris of scrap metal from the road.
By 2 p.m., all lanes on Highway 101 and the off-ramp of Third Street had been opened back up again for traffic. The California Highway Patrol verified that the road cleanup was finished, and traffic had resumed as normal. There were no reported injuries during the incident.
