ELMA, Wash. (AP) -- A tanker truck carrying 11,000 gallons of gasoline swerved off a highway, rolled over and exploded early Thursday, starting a fire that burned for hours.
The truck driver was killed. No one else was injured, and no other vehicles were involved in the accident.
The truck carried one large tank plus a second tank on a trailer. The fire consumed both the truck-mounted tank and the trailer, said State Patrol spokesman Glenn Tyrrell.
``There's nothing left of the trailer, except for a little bit of chassis,'' he said.
The fire was so big that fire crews stood back and waited for it to burn out.
``All the gasoline stayed pretty contained and burned, which is a good thing,'' said Sandy Howard, spokeswoman for the state Department of Ecology.
The crash happened around 6:45 a.m. near the Grays Harbor County fairgrounds, about 25 miles west of Olympia.
Tyrrell said the truck was owned by Reinhard Petroleum. Phil Dorr, the company's operations manager, declined comment.
The cause of the accident remained under investigation.
