This incident occurred in the nearly eight-kilometer-long Renstaig tunnel on the A 71 highway near Zuhl (Thuringia, Germany): a trailer of a car carrier caught fire.
Firefighters say that the Polish driver of the Volvo FM is not bleeding blood, but ice water: when he saw the fire on the trailer, he stopped and tried to put out the fire with foam from a fire extinguisher, but realized it was useless.
Then he pressed the SOS panic button, which is located everywhere in the pockets of the tunnel, got behind the wheel and drove to the exit. There were two kilometers of tunnel behind us, and six more ahead.
The situation was already seen on CCTV cameras by the tunnel’s control room staff and the fire brigade was alerted.
The Polish trucker managed to get the truck out of the tunnel, which was engulfed in flames. The fire has already engulfed the semi-trailer with the cars.
The driver stopped the truck at the exit of the tunnel, where firefighters were waiting for him, and quickly left the cab.
The tunnel fire brigade then took over the extinguishing operations. Some of the cars were saved, but six out of nine loaded cars burned down. The damage is estimated at 250 thousand euros.
As Bild notes, traffic in the Thuringian tunnels is monitored around the clock by the central control center (ZBL) in Zella Melissa. In case of danger, the police, fire brigade and rescue services will be immediately alerted and, depending on the situation, will act according to the developed scenarios that have been repeatedly rehearsed during the exercises.
However, the Polish trucker’s actions were not scripted, and his heroic deed will go down in the annals of this transport facility and German fire and rescue operations.
Police praised the behavior of a Polish truck driver whose truck caught fire in a highway tunnel.
Sober thinking allowed us to avoid an extremely dangerous situation, which could have been the spread of fire inside the tunnel: the huge danger of smoke and open fire posed a threat to other traffic participants.
