5 Truck Afire

Four months later, on Friday the thirteenth of January 1995, I ran into some bad luck. Not my fault—just one of those things. I was driving a plain old work truck—a dark blue 359 series Pete with a four-hundred-horsepower Cat engine—but at least the air conditioner worked. It had oversized stacks that were ten inches over thirteen feet and gave me some hard times under bridges till I hacked off five inches.

This night I was headed down Highway 76 towards Denver with a flat load of extruded aluminum under tarp. I’d just passed the Sterling exit when I heard a big “Boom!” Slabs of rubber flew through the air in all directions.

I turned off cruise control, pulled onto the shoulder and jumped out. The inside rear driver’s side tire was burning like a Roman candle. I got the extinguisher and put it out three times, but it kept relighting like those trick candles at birthday parties. The brake drum glowed orange hot and I knew I was in trouble.

I pulled the pin on the fifth wheel and removed the hoses and connecting lines. Then I went to the landing gear and cranked it down so I could drive the truck out from under the load.

By the time I got into the cab, flames were licking at the underside of the trailer. I released the brakes, moved the truck a hundred feet away, parked it and set out warning triangles. As I waited for the fire department, other truckers stopped to see if they could help. I told them that there was nothing to do but enjoy the fire. After fifteen minutes the firefighters sprayed enough water on the drum to cool it off.

Now all my tires were flat and the wiring and hoses were burnt off. The seals in the wheels were burnt and leaking. I took a close look but couldn’t determine the cause of the fire. Was it something I did wrong? I considered myself a great truck driver, at the top of my skills, and I didn’t want any “driver error” entries on my record.

A wrecker hauled me and the burnt truck to Sterling. It took me a few days to work my way to our Fontana yard near San Bernardino, where I picked up another old Peterbilt for a load to Spokane.