Fuel tanker caught fire close to Vaal Marina in Vereeniging

A fuel tanker caught fire on the R54 approximately 4km from the Vaal Marina in Vereeniging at around 23h40 on Monday, 1 February 2021. “Tertius Engelbrecht of Midvaal Fire and Rescue Services said, “We responded to a 42 000L fuel tanker on fire on Monday. The rear compartment of the tanker contained petrol and the rest of the tanker contained diesel. Our response included a major pumper and water tanker and a fire crew of eight, which included the station officer. Crews were on scene about 15 minutes after receiving the call. The incident occurred roughly 35km from Meyerton Fire Station. Both lanes of the R54 were closed. The fuel tanker was fully engulfed by flames. The rear compartment already burned away.

Eskom Overhead power cables were hanging in front of the cab of the tanker. We started to extinguish the cab to prevent flames damaging the electrical cables. The wind was blowing strongly to the one side of the tanker. We approached the tanker from the rear all access point due to the wind direction and the one side wall of the tanker that did not give us any proper access to apply foam. We started with aggressive fire fighting but with the elements against us, we could not extinguish the fire. Challenges faced included the strong wind and that the closest fire hydrant was 7km from the scene.

The main concern then was to do exposure protection by extinguishing the grass fire that could spread rapidly due to the strong wind that was blowing. Fire was extinguished at 08h30 the next morning. There were no injuries on scene. The tanker burned out completely and damaged the road surface. The Spill Tech crew also attended to clean up the scene.

Source: Tertius Engelbrecht, station officer, Midvaal Fire and Rescue Service