18-Wheeler Fire Snarls Traffic; Astoundingly Driver Lives

A wild situation continues to unfold along Interstate Ten eastbound, near Mile Marker 106. The driver of an 18-wheeler carrying auto parts told officials a fellow driver signaled her truck was on fire. When she pulled over, the fire grew bigger. State Police officials say firefighters are putting out the blaze only for it to keep reigniting.

No one knows yet exactly what caused an 18-wheeler to catch fire on I-10 in the early morning hours of Wednesday. What we do know is that traffic was snarled for quite some time. In addition, we also know that despite all of the damage to the big rig, the driver made it out alive.

According to Louisiana State Police Spokesman, Trooper Thomas Gossen, the 18-wheeler ended up on the side of Interstate Ten eastbound after it caught fire this morning.

Multiple listeners communicated with us on "Acadiana's Morning News" to let us know what was happening. Paul called a couple of times to let us know that there was a tremendous amount of smoke when they first rolled up to the area. While the right lane was closed for a while this morning, he said the left lane was moving, but it was only moving about five miles an hour. After about thirty minutes, he said the fire was almost out.

While others called us and used the KPEL news app's chat feature to give us details, our friend Dee was able to send up several pictures included in this story by emailing them to news@kpel965.com.

You can see from the various pictures that the driver was definitely a lucky person today because Gossen says the man walked away from this incident. Isn't life crazy? You just never know when something really weird is going to happen. We are glad to know that the man was able to make it out of this terrible situation.