FIRE: A truck carrying 23 tonnes of cans of sardines in oil caught fire and lost part of its cargo near Villeneuve-Loubet. Traffic should remain disrupted all day in the Italy-Aix direction
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A fire broke out overnight from Monday to Tuesday on the trailer of a heavy goods vehicle carrying 23 tonnes of cans of sardines in oil and part of the cargo spilt onto the A8 motorway.
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The A8 was able to partially reopen from 7 a.m., but traffic is still very disrupted on Tuesday morning.
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At 9:50 a.m., according to Vinci Autoroutes, it still took an hour to connect Antibes to Nice, compared to about twenty minutes in normal times, and the situation should remain complicated until Tuesday evening.
Very large traffic jams still paralyze the A8 this Tuesday at Antibes ( Alpes-Maritimes ) towards Italy, after an incident that occurred overnight. The firefighters were called shortly before 3 a.m. when the trailer of a heavy goods vehicle carrying 23 tonnes of cans of sardines in oil had just caught fire for an as yet unexplained reason. The vehicle stopped at the Villeneuve-Loubet exit, and also lost part of its cargo on the road.
The driver of the truck, who was able to unhitch his tractor, allowing the fire not to spread according to the firefighters, was not injured.
“Long-term operation”
Around 6 a.m., the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service confirmed that the fire had been extinguished but that the 26 firefighters mobilized were still proceeding “to flood the trailer in order to avoid any resumption” and to “cool its structure before it is picked up by the convenience store”. A “long-term operation” led the gendarmerie to close the highway between Antibes and Villeneuve-Loubet.
The A8 was able to partially reopen from 7 a.m., but traffic is still very disrupted on Tuesday morning. At 9:50 a.m., according to Vinci Autoroutes, it still took an hour to connect Antibes to Nice, compared to about twenty minutes in normal times. And the situation should remain complicated until Tuesday evening. The motorway concessionaire indicates that “exit 46 Villeneuve-Loubet Plage will remain closed for the day” and that “the charred heavy goods vehicle will be evacuated tonight”.
