Freezing rain and near-zero temperatures formed a dangerous combination on the roads of Athabasca and area last Thursday, which led to multiple vehicles going off the road, even a fire truck.
Members of the Athabasca Fire Department were responding to a call reported to be five kilometres south of town at around 3:30 in the morning. In reality, the accident, a rolled tanker truck carrying molten sulphur, was just north of Highway 661 near Rochester.
Athabasca Fire Department Chief Denis Matthieu explained that the slippery conditions on a newly paved portion of Highway 2 proved too much for the department’s lead truck, which slid off the road and rolled over at around 4 a.m.
The only person in the truck, the driver, was shaken up but had no injuries, he said, adding that the firefighters in the rescue vehicle behind it were able to quickly attend to the accident.
The truck will probably be a write off, he said.
Colinton and Rochester fire departments also attended the sulphur truck spill. They formed an 800-metre perimeter around the truck as the liquid solidified, a process which releases toxic fumes. A detour was also set up to reroute traffic. By late morning the road was open and a hazmat crew was on scene cleaning up the solid sulphur.
Athabasca RCMP officers also had an event-filled early morning, explained detachment commander Sergeant Brian Scott.
Most of the action was between 5 and 7 a.m., he said.
It was the large vehicles that were having trouble staying on the roads, as there were no reports of passenger vehicles in trouble.
Overall, he said, six more trucks slid off the roads, including a transport truck, one tandem axle, one single axle, the sulphur-carrying tanker and two snow plows.
Luckily, all of the vehicles, besides the tanker, stayed on their wheels and only had to be pulled out of the weeds, he said.
He urged all drivers to use extreme caution in slippery conditions, which is mostly a matter of slowing down and leaving space between vehicles.
“If it’s hovering around zero, there’s a good chance there’s going to be ice,” he said.
