A tractor-trailer caught fire early Thursday morning, forcing transportation officials to close the southbound lanes of Interstate 395 near Springfield — the fourth major incident involving trucks in the past three days, officials said.
The fire likely was caused by overheated tires, officials said. Fire crews were able to extinguish the blaze relatively quickly using a special foam, and tow the truck away. But the incident created major backups onthe four-lane highway — including long delays caused by commuters trying to view the incident, officials said.
On Tuesday, two tractor-trailer accidents shut down the Outer Loop of the Beltway for hours, and tens of thousands of drivers were trapped in their cars as temperatures climbed nearly to 100 degrees. Also on Tuesday, a jack-knifed tractor-trailer blocked the southbound lanes of I-395 for nearly four hours.
Ron Kirby, transportation planning director for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, said the incidents are unfortunate considering traffic congestion typically eases in August, but he said the region has few traffic problems created by freight carriers.
“Washington, D.C., does not have a port, so we don’t see the problems that Los Angeles or even Baltimore has,” Kirby said.
A recent study shows just 11 percent of the traffic across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, along the southernmost loop of I-495 and a connector to Interstate 95, is freight traffic.
And 4 percent of those trucks are “traveling through” the region, Kirby said.
“We have to accept them as part of our traffic stream because their cargo is critical to our economy,” Kirby said.
He said most truck drivers tend to rest during peak traffic hours.
In addition to the I-395 incident, a suspicious package seen floating in the water beneath the Woodrow Wilson Bridge brought the Beltway to a standstill for nearly 25 minutes Thursday morning.
Emergency officials later determined the package to be a weather monitoring device.
The highway was closed on both sides of the bridge just after 7 a.m. and reopened at 8:15 a.m.
