Section of 407 opens after two killed in crash that sparked tanker fire
Posted November 1, 2018 2:58 am.
Last Updated November 1, 2018 6:31 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO – A section of a busy toll highway that cuts through the Toronto area reopened early Thursday, almost 12 hours after a fiery crash involving a tanker truck claimed the lives of two men.
The Ontario Provincial Police say the eastbound lanes of Highway 407 from Keele Street to Dufferin Street in Vaughan were cleared for traffic at around 6 a.m. local time.
The two men were killed Wednesday just before 5 p.m. when a westbound tanker crossed several lanes of traffic, jumped a median and collided with an eastbound passenger vehicle.
Police spokesman Sgt. Kerry Schmidt said both vehicles were consumed by flames and thick, black smoke in what he described as a “massive” collision, adding that the investigation would take some time.
“I could see smoke from kilometres away as I was heading to the scene,” Schmidt said Wednesday.
Schmidt confirmed the victims were a 41-year-old male truck driver from Brampton, Ont., and a 49-year-old man from Mississauga, Ont.
Both were pronounced dead at the scene. No one else was injured.
“When our firefighters arrived, they weren’t able to get close to it because of the heat coming off of it,” said deputy fire Chief Andrew Zvanitajs, a member of the Vaughan Fire and Rescue Service.
It took two hours to extinguish the blaze.
Mississauga resident Robert Kostiuk said he was returning home from work in Pickering, Ont., when he saw a vehicle ahead of him heading toward the median.
“When I saw it driving sideways, I knew that something was wrong,” he said.
Kostiuk recorded the crash on his dashboard camera and posted the video to YouTube.
Schmidt said there was some concern about fuel spilling into a nearby waterway. Officials from the provincial Environment Ministry were called in to assess the scene.
