Today (Friday 26th march) there was an accident involving a car and a gas tanker on I 84 outside Danbury CT, it happened under a bridge and the tank exploded on impact, presumably killing all occupants, the blaze was so intense that the suporting steel in the bridge melted and it collapsed into the highway. This has to be a first ever such incident.
I feel deeply sorry for all the relatives concerned and can’t imagine any heat so intense that it can actualy melt a bridge, it could only compare to the fires in the twin towers 
Pat, I heard both the driver of the truck and one firefighter will treazted for minor injuries, there was a pic of the truck on AOL news. The tractor was a Pete, it was yellow, but the trailer only the front compartment above the fifth wheel was still visible, the rest having melted or disintegrated. I’m glad the trucker got out, I know he will prolly not ever wanna haul gas again, but all us tanker drivers live with the reality of these crashes every day, god willing it won’t be one of us next.
Stuart
Well, I’m glad he and others got off reasonably well and still alive, that was some fire. 
They had one in Florida about three weeks ago, it melted the whole bridge, the driver died, it was on the front page of The Trucker two weeks ago.
This has to be a first ever such incident
Hardly. Back in 1993 or 1994, there was a similar accident on the QEW about 20km from Ft. Erie, ON. 2 B-trains carrying phosphate and a JB Hunt truck had an accident where the lanes squeezed together by a construction zone. The second B-train hit the first train, caught fire, and burned, killing the driver trapped inside. The load eventaually burned, as did the aluminium of the trailers, right under an overpass. That overpass was concrete, but there was metal rebar inside, and the bridge had to be closed and significantly rebuilt.
About 1 year previous to that accident, there was a bad accident on the Calumet expressway south of Chicago. A steel hauler had a car spin and hit him, and while trying to keep control of his truck, a 30,000lb coil broke free, bounced down the road, hit the center support of a bridge, breaking the support and intstantly lowering the bridge some 10’. The coil then bounced back into the highway, flattening a car and killing 2 people.