Two Big Rigs Collide on 210 Freeway, Shutting Lanes 12 Hours

Two big rigs collided on the westbound 210 Freeway just east of Pennsylvania Avenue in La Crescenta shortly before 11 a.m. on Aug. 19, sending three people to hospitals, pinning a car beneath an overturned trailer and shutting all westbound lanes for more than 12 hours.

One of the two trucks overturned in the collision and dumped its load across the roadway, while one of the rigs caught fire, the California Highway Patrol said. The blaze forced a firefighting response onto a scene that already required emergency medical care and full traffic management, a combination that slowed the cleanup.

A Mercedes-Benz sedan was drawn into the crash and became wedged beneath the overturned trailer, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said. Aerial footage showed boxes and other cargo strewn across several lanes around the toppled truck.

More than 12 hours closed

The collision was reported at about 10:55 a.m., according to the CHP incident log, and the westbound side of the freeway stayed shut through the afternoon and overnight as crews worked to remove two badly damaged trucks and sweep the spilled cargo from the pavement. All westbound lanes reopened around 1 a.m. on Aug. 20, the CHP said, more than 12 hours after the crash was first reported.

CHP officers issued a SigAlert covering the entire westbound corridor in the area. To keep some vehicles moving, officers first pushed traffic through the center median, then, by mid-afternoon, routed westbound drivers onto the southbound Glendale (2) Freeway while the wreckage was cleared.

A SigAlert, as the CHP defines it, covers any unscheduled traffic event that shuts two or more lanes for at least 30 minutes. This one cleared that threshold with ease: cargo from the overturned trailer spread across all westbound lanes, turning the removal into an hours-long job.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation.

Highway Patrol officers and Los Angeles County firefighters managed the scene, diverting traffic and treating the injured as the fire was brought under control. The three people hurt were taken to local hospitals, and their conditions were not released. Crews also had to work around the cargo that had spilled across multiple lanes.

A count that grew

Emergency crews initially reported one person taken from the scene in unknown condition. As they finished checking everyone involved, the number rose to three.

The tractor-trailer that overturned came to rest on top of the Mercedes, leaving the sedan trapped underneath and making the recovery slow and hazardous for crews.

The CHP has not said which of the two trucks ignited, how the fire started, or how the rigs came to collide in the first place.

It is not clear what either truck was carrying.

The crash site sits on the Foothill Freeway just east of Pennsylvania Avenue, on the boundary between La Crescenta-Montrose and La Canada Flintridge, where the westbound lanes were blocked.

A second big rig fire

The collision was not the only trouble on the westbound 210 that morning. About two hours earlier, just after 9 a.m., a separate big rig caught fire on the westbound freeway near Sunland Boulevard, the CHP said, in an incident unrelated to the later crash.

Flames from that earlier fire spread into about half an acre of hillside brush and triggered a SigAlert of its own. Together, the two events choked traffic across the Crescenta Valley for the bulk of the day, forcing drivers onto local off-ramps as both scenes were worked at the same time.

Aerial coverage over the scene near Pennsylvania Avenue showed the overturned rig ringed by debris around noon, with another vehicle pinned beneath one of the trucks. All westbound lanes were still closed at 3 p.m., with crews continuing to clear the wreckage and the scattered load.

The center-median workaround kept a trickle of vehicles moving early on, before the wider diversion onto the Glendale Freeway took hold. Even so, the closures produced prolonged gridlock through the Crescenta Valley for much of the day.

By mid-afternoon, westbound 210 traffic was being sent onto the southbound Glendale (2) Freeway.

What investigators have not said

The CHP has released no cleanup timeline beyond the eventual reopening, and it has not determined a cause for the wreck. Investigators have not said whether either truck driver was injured, nor whether the three people taken to hospitals included the occupant of the Mercedes that was pinned beneath the trailer.

Three people were taken to nearby hospitals for injuries from the collision, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said, and their status was not immediately known. No update on their conditions had been released by the time the freeway reopened early on Aug. 20.

Between the two incidents, the westbound 210 was under a SigAlert for most of the working day, from just after 9 a.m. until the lanes reopened after midnight.

The cause of the earlier fire near Sunland Boulevard has not been released either.

The three hospitalized had not been publicly identified.

The overnight cleanup

Clearing the wreckage stretched into the night. Crews had to right the overturned trailer, free the trapped sedan and sweep the spilled cargo from the pavement before the westbound lanes could be handed back to traffic. The work ran until the small hours of Aug. 20.

The westbound closure held from before 11 a.m. on Aug. 19 until around 1 a.m. the next day, more than 12 hours in all, the CHP said. The agency did not report a closure of the eastbound lanes.

For drivers, the disruption meant hours of detours across the Crescenta Valley, with local off-ramps absorbing traffic the freeway could not carry while both truck scenes were being cleared at once. The two incidents, though unrelated, combined to keep the corridor snarled from morning into the afternoon.

The CHP said the cause of the collision is still being investigated. As of the reopening, the agency had not detailed how the two rigs met, why one overturned, or what set the fire that complicated the response. It also gave no timeline for a finding.