Truck fire, 2 crashes on stretch of Highway 401; 5 people taken to hospital

A truck fire and two crashes on a stretch of Highway 401 kept emergency crews busy starting late Thursday, into Friday morning.

The Northumberland detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police said that emergency crews first responded at around 11:40 p.m. Thursday to a tractor-trailer fire on Highway 401 westbound in the Township of Cramahe.

The highway was closed as crews worked for “several hours” to extinguish the blaze, police said. The load had reportedly caught fire.

The highway was reopened to one lane at around 3 a.m.

No injuries were reported in that incident and the investigation is ongoing.

Handout / OPP

Then at around 8:15 a.m., officers responded to two separate crashes in the Municipality of Brighton, a few kilometres east of the fire scene. Both collisions occurred west of County Road 30, within 500 metres of each other, police said.

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One involved three tractor-trailers and a passenger vehicle in the westbound lanes. One of the trucks rolled into the centre grass median, police said.

The truck drivers were not injured, but the driver of the passenger vehicle was taken to a local hospital to be treated for minor injuries, police said.

Westbound Highway 401 was closed in the area until around 11 a.m.

The second crash occurred eastbound and involved a tractor-trailer and a passenger vehicle that was towing a boat, police said.

The truck stopped on the shoulder, but the passenger vehicle ended up in the ditch, police said.

Four people who were in the passenger vehicle were taken to hospital as a precaution, the OPP said, while the truck driver wasn’t injured.

One eastbound lane was temporarily closed there.

The OPP said investigations are ongoing.

Handout / OPP