Two people are dead after their semitrailer exploded when it hit another semi parked illegally on the side of Interstate 80 near Green River on Sunday.
The crash scene “was a pretty bad one,” said Green River Fire Department Assistant Chief Larry Erdmann. “It was almost like a movie scene.”
Usually with a highway crash involving fire, there’s debris scattered about, “Then if the vehicle catches fire, it’s down the road a little,” he told Cowboy State Daily on Monday morning.
“On this one, the explosion seems to have happened on impact,” he added.
That corresponds with the initial information reported by the Wyoming Highway Patrol, said agency spokesman Aaron Brown.
Troopers were dispatched at 5:23 a.m. to the crash on eastbound I-80 near mile marker 93, he said.
“What had happened was a semitruck was parked on the right side of the highway … and at that point, illegally parked,” Brown said. “Another semi, for reasons that we do not know, drifted from the left side of the highway to the right and struck the trailer of the parked semi.”
With that collision, “the second semi basically exploded on impact,” he added.
Both people in the second truck were killed, while the driver of the parked truck was reportedly outside the cab at the time of the collision, Brown said.
He also explained that the first truck was illegally parked because there was no apparent emergency, and parking is only allowed for emergencies.
“It was mostly on the shoulder,” he said. “However, I believe the way it was explained to me is they weren’t parked for an emergency, it was for something else.
“And so, it was an illegal parking and (the driver) was issued a summons for illegal parking instead of a citation.”
The crash closed the eastbound lanes of I-80 throughout the morning, finally reopening shortly before noon, Erdmann said.