News Release

Even water trucks catch on fire

NPS

News Release Date: January 19, 2024

Contact: Abby Wines, 760-786-3221

DEATH VALLEY, Calif. – A semi-truck hauling bottled water caught on fire within Death Valley National Park on January 10.  

Responders on scene believe that the trailer brakes overheated as the truck was descending CA-190 eastbound from Towne Pass around 8:00 pm.  

Beatty Volunteer Fire Department, National Park Service, California Highway Patrol, and Caltrans all responded to the fire. According to a park ranger on scene, the melting water bottles in the trailer helped slow the fire, but not enough to save it. 

CA-190 is the only road within Death Valley National Park that commercial traffic is allowed on.  

-www.nps.gov/deva-  

Death Valley National Park is the homeland of the Timbisha Shoshone and preserves natural resources, cultural resources, exceptional wilderness, scenery, and learning experiences within the nation’s largest conserved desert landscape and some of the most extreme climate and topographic conditions on the planet. Learn more at www.nps.gov/deva.