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Milwaukee County semi fires
Two semi fires caused serious traffic trouble at two different locations in Milwaukee County on Wednesday.
MILWAUKEE COUNTY, Wis. - There were two semi-truck fires on Milwaukee County highways on Wednesday, July 9.
Traffic backups were frequent throughout the day.
What we know:
A semi-truck fire on I-43 northbound at Hampton Avenue prompted a full freeway closure on Wednesday morning. It happened around 2:20 a.m.
The fire left the semi-trailer split in half.
"Right here, it looked like there were two fire engines and then squads lined up all the way down," said Deb Kuetzing, who saw the fire. "It’s almost at a dead standstill."
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MFD responded to the fire. Crews had to remove part of a chain-link fence to get to a fire hydrant.
"Because of the amount of water needed for a fire that size out on the freeway, we needed to get a water source," Milwaukee Fire Chief Aaron Lipski said. "As you can imagine, there is not typically a hydrant system out on the freeway."
Lipski said there is a growing number of hazardous materials on the roads.
"[It’s] very hazardous for us to just walk up and assume with a semi-trailer full of, who knows what this is, like any old fire we used to put out in the old days," Lipski said. "Now we have the advent of lithium-ion batteries, charging systems, various energy storage systems .electric vehicles themselves."
Then, just after 6:30 a.m., another semi-truck caught fire. This one was on Highway 100, near the Zoo Interchange.
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The Wisconsin State Patrol said a break failure started that fire. The trailer was empty.
Lipski said companies are supposed to have placard displays if they are carrying hazardous materials, but he has seen cases where that hasn’t happened.
"The motoring public might be inclined to drive through a cloud of smoke just to get past it – we have no idea what is in that smoke any more than we do, so there is a tremendous risk to the public as well," he said.
The Source: The information in this post was provided by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office.