Photo Gallery: Route 1 Truck Fire

This fire involving a tractor-trailer loaded with a cargo of dog food was extinguished before it could cause any major damage, but it did force police and firefighters to close a couple lanes of Route 1 North for over an hour Tuesday evening, Dec. 28.

Ironically, the blaze happened in the same area of Route 1 (Brunswick Pike), just north of Interstate 295, that was the scene of a less than nine hours earlier.

It was about 7:30 p.m. when crews from Lawrence Township's Lawrenceville and Slackwood volunteer fire companies were dispatched for a reported truck fire. They  arrived to find a tractor-trailer stopped in the right-most lane of Route 1 North in front of the state Motor Vehicle Commission's Bakers Basin inspection station.

Firefighters said the tractor-trailer's operator told them he had been driving along when he realized there was some kind of problem with his rear brakes. He said he slowed down, intending to pull over to examine the brakes.

But before he could find a safe place to stop, the man told firefighters, another motorist pulled alongside him and yelled that there were flames coming from around his rear wheels.

The trucker immediately stopped his rig along the side of the road, jumped out and used a portable extinguisher to attack the flames, firefighters said.

The blaze was almost entirely out when firefighters reached the scene, but to put it out completely they hauled out a hose and sprayed water on the trailer's rear brake assembly.

Of Route 1's four northbound lanes, the two right-most lanes were closed by Lawrence Township police to protect firefighters from oncoming traffic while they worked.  The disabled tractor-trailer later had to be towed away.