By Jim Holt & Tammy Murga
Signal Staff Writers
Firefighters were dispatched to a brush fire off the southbound lanes of Interstate 5, just north of Lake Hughes Road, Wednesday afternoon.
Shortly after 3:30 p.m., firefighters with the Los Angeles County Fire Department responded to car fire on the right shoulder of I-5 involving a FedEx truck.
“The call came in at 3:36 p.m. and on scene at 3:53 p.m. for a brush fire. There was a FedEx vehicle that was on fire and spread to the brush. It’s about 0.5 acres, light fuel and more engines are on their way. No structures threatened,” Fire Department spokeswoman Vanessa Lozano said.
About 3:55 p.m., Officer A. Mendoza of the California Highway Patrol’s Newhall Station arrived on scene and saw the big rig rully engulfed in flames, with the brush in the surrounding area beginning to catch fire, said Officer Josh Greengard of the California Highway Patrol.
“The trailer was empty at the time of the fire,” Greengard said.
The burning truck was in the southbound lanes of I-5 at the 2,000-foot altitude level.
When firefighters got to it all the southbound lanes were shut down to facilitate fire department equipment and to extinguish the fire.
At 4:35 p.m., the no. 1 and no. 2 lanes of I-5 southbound, commonly referred to as the fast lane and the lane immediately to its right, were open for southbound traffic.
Northbound lanes were not impacted, Greengard siad.
Caltrans was called to set up a hard closure and the duration for the incident was expected to last approximately two hours.
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