After 12-hours of clean up, the Brentwood Police Department announced at 3:03 pm that all lanes of Brentwood Blvd are now open as crews have completed cleaning up the messy scene.
The incident occurred at 3:04 am where the big rig lost control after losing a tire and apparently hit the guard rail as it approached the bridge where a big rig lost a tire and hit the guard rail causing a fire to occur.
This caused the Brentwood Boulevard to be closed down from Sunset Road to Havenwood Ave.
Although the incident is still under investigation, Lt. Tolero stated that it appears a spark from hitting the guard rail may have ignited the gas tank underneath the vehicle. He stated the vehicle went up pretty fast and the damage was so great that its making it difficult on investigators so its requiring a little bit more time.
He did state that the community was lucky this incident occurred in the early morning hours with little traffic and people outside—it allowed for quick response and little impact on public safety folks.
“Obviously we don’t want this incident to happen, but because it happened at 3 am, it was good for PD to get to the incident quickly. We are lucky nobody was injured,” explained Lt. Tolero.
He also stated the driver was not injured in the wreck.
In the early morning hours, it was estimated crews would be able to open up the roads by 8:00 am, it was later moved back to 10:30, but it turned out to be longer than usual due to the damage and precautions needed.
“The diesel spill was causing some problems to clean up prior to us even being able to move the truck which caused the delays. Once we got the diesel cleared, we then had a difficult time in getting all the product off the truck and onto the road because we did not want it spilling back into the canal which caused a longer delay,” explained Lt. Tolero. “Because the truck was so badly damaged, we couldn’t just put it back on a flatbed, we needed to cut it in half and place it onto two separate flat beds which was another issue. Once we cleared the vehicle and product, we got it cleared pretty quickly”.
There is minimal damage to the roadway which was better than expected. At this time, it appears a new coat of slurry seal and re-striping will be needed.
Brentwood PD had a total of five personnel on scene while East Contra Costa Fire Protection District had three engines report to the incident.
“We want to thank the residents of Brentwood for their patience going through the detours. I know it’s difficult for a lot of people to get around the incident, but we appreciate their patience and understanding,” said Lt. Tolero.
It should also be noted that this was the first incident outside of testing for the new Nixle alert system. A total of three alerts went out on this incident which kept the community updated on the incident.
