SALEM – A deputy fire chief with Centre Wellington Fire and Rescue said the situation involving a propane truck fire could have been much worse if not for some quick action by the driver and OPP.
Jonathan Karn, deputy chief, said just before 5 p.m. Thursday a fire started in the back end of a small propane truck at the Wellington Road 7 and 18 intersection in Salem.
He explained the driver and OPP had used some fire extinguishers on the blaze before firefighters arrived which helped it not impede onto the propane truck itself.
“Which is a good thing, the driver’s efforts stopped it from growing in size which could have been really bad,” Karn said.
If the truck was fully on fire, Karn said this would possibly require evacuating a one kilometre radius around the truck.
This ultimately wasn’t required and the fire was fully put out and only required firefighters to be on the scene for about an hour.
“You start to have to do a large scale evacuation in an urban area it gets to be a lot, trying to move people out of the area so we’re certainly fortunate,” Karn said.
Karn isn’t positive the cause of the fire but suspects it would be a mechanical issue.
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