Tanker truck goes up in flames in Texas

A tanker truck collided with another vehicle on a Texas highway on Wednesday, causing the truck to erupt into large flames that took hours to extinguish.

The tanker truck collided with another vehicle around 5 a.m. on US Highway 75 in Plano, Texas, on Wednesday in the northbound lanes.

The truck driver lost control of the vehicle for unknown reasons, causing it to roll onto its side, hitting another 18-wheeler and a car, Fox 4 News reported.

The truck driver and the driver of the other vehicle were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

A good Sanitarian helped pull the driver from the trailer cab, CBS Texas reported.

Aerial footage of the crash shows large, red flames consuming the overturned vehicle as a thick, black cloud of smoke clogged several hundred feet of the sky.

Firefighters let the truck burn for more than four hours as it was the “cleanest and easiest thing to do,” Capt. Michael Carr said, according to Fox 4 News.

“If we start putting water on it, and then it drains into the sewer system, then we have to worry about the water getting contaminated,” Carr said.

The tanker was carrying unleaded fuel.

The Plano Police Department said the cause of the accident was “still being determined.”

US Highway 75’s northbound lanes were shut down for hours, but have since reopened with delays.