Hazmat Explosion on Highway 52 in North Carolina

On January 12th at 4:50 am the City of King Fire Department was dispatched to assist the Rural Hall Fire Department on tractor trailer rollover with possible haz-mat on Highway 52. While in staging an explosion was heard a wreck had occurred north of the haz-mat incident involving two tractor trailers and two passenger vehicles.

Initial arriving units found that one of the tractor trailers was heavily involved. The involved trailer was placarded with a "inhalation hazard" placard. Manifests found showed 100 lbs of Nitric Acid on board. It took 12 engines and over 100 firefighters 3 hours to control the blaze using over 300 gallons of foam.

All four lanes of the highway were shut down for 12 hours to mitigate both incidents.