According to details from San Diego 6, a single-vehicle car accident caused personal injuries as well as a brush fire in southeast San Diego County.  The fire spread to about ten acres and closed several lanes of Interstate 8.

Naturally it gets a little hotter in the summertime, and in San Diego, some of the eastern parts of the county are subject to dry spells which can cause problems.  Fires can start as a result of the dry heat, and the smallest spark can cause the largest fire.  A spark, from say, a car accident can be the catalyst that starts this fire that can cause thousands of dollars in property damage along with any personal injuries involved in the crash.

Car accident on Interstate 8 causes injuries and causes a brush fire destroying acres of land.

A single-car rollover accident on Interstate 8 in Jacuba — a community in San Diego county — caused personal injuries and started a brush fire that destroyed a large portion of land in the area.

California Highway Patrol (CHP) officials say a car veered off the I-8 near Carrizo Gorge Road and overturned on a center median at about 2 p.m.  Paramedics took one of the injured people to a trauma center via airlift, and the other was extracted by Caltrans workers who were the first on the scene.

After the car accident, the vehicle began to burn which lit the vegetation in the center divider on fire.  Those flames “jumped” the westbound lanes of the freeway and ignited plants on the hillside nearby according to Cal Fire spokesman Mike Mohler.

Fire crews used equipment on the ground, two helicopters and two air tankers to successfully contain the blaze by about 4 p.m., but both lanes of the westbound I-8 had to be closed to traffic for over two hours.  This began a nightmare scenario at around rush hour where other possible rear-end car accidents could have happened as a result of bumper to bumper traffic.

One westbound lane was opened at about 4:30 p.m., and both eastbound lanes were open by that time.

Our car accident lawyers in San Diego want to remind you that you never know what is going to happen after you get into a car accident.  Sometimes, there may only be injuries or — in the worst cases — wrongful death, but also keep in mind all of the highly flammable liquids in cars that can spark blazes that can cause burn injuries or thousands of dollars in property damage.

About Michael Pines

Michael Pines is a former insurance company attorney who specializes in car accident injury. While he was an insurance attorney, he learned from behind the scenes on how insurance companies work and how they decided to pay injured people. Now that he works against insurance companies, Michael's inside knowledge has resulted in significant benefits to his clients injured in car accidents.