Shocking videos show a truck erupting into a towering inferno in New Jersey after a Monday morning traffic accident that killed the driver, closed the highway and nearly took out several local firefighters.
One video — recorded by a rubbernecker who pulled his phone out at exactly the right time — shows an unidentified Clifton firefighter walking toward a tractor-trailer that caught fire on the side of Route 3 in Clifton, with the driver reportedly still missing.
Suddenly, the already raging flames burst into an orange mushroom cloud leaping dozens of feet into the air.
The firefighter backs off, before walking back to the tractor-trailer — just as it blows apart once more, sending a flaming tire hurtling through the air just a few feet from his face.
In another video taken from further away, the tire appears to slam into the side of a fire truck parked down the highway — and it nearly clipped a firefighter who was carrying his gear away from the rig.
“Oh my god!” a woman yelled in the background, as the firefighter yelled at his people to back up.
Once they got control of the blaze, firefighters found the 55-year-old driver’s lifeless body in the wreckage, according to the Bergen Record.
The fire reportedly began after a bus rear-ended the truck on the busy highway, which eventually merges with I-495 about a mile from the Lincoln Tunnel. Gawking motorists called in the subsequent blaze at about 9 a.m.
The tractor-trailer busted through the sound barriers lining the side of the road, and the scorching heat melted an above-ground pool and the vinyl siding on a neighboring house.
“I went outside in my backyard, and there was a big fire — a big, big, big fire,” resident Jignasha Rana told CBS.
“I was so scared, so I took my kids and my mother-in-law and brought them to my mother’s house.”
“I heard an explosion, then another explosion when I came through the door,” she continued.
“They told me to just get out. They told me a truck ran into the wall. I grabbed the dog and got myself out, he was out already. And that was it.”
Homes perched near the highway were evacuated after the blaze, and the highway remains closed both ways near Valley Road and Grove Street, according to NorthJersey.com.
First responders found the truck was carrying explosive materials, according to ABC 7. But it’s not clear what the material was.
Clifton firefighters said some people were injured, but did not give details.
The truck driver is reportedly still missing.
It’s not clear what caused the explosion. But the Clifton cops have recommended people avoid the area entirely.