FedEx Truck Catches Fire In Plainfield

PLAINFIELD, IL — A FedEx delivery truck caught fire as it was driving through Plainfield Wednesday, though no one was hurt. The driver managed to pull off of IL-59 before the truck was fully engulfed in flames, helping to avoid a major traffic blockage in town.

The FedEx truck left the company's facility in Romeoville Wednesday morning and was being driven northbound on IL-59 near Rte 126. At that point, a motorcyclist pulled up to the truck and told its driver that the vehicle was smoking heavily from the back. The truck driver then noticed the smoke and pulled into the parking lot of Heartland Bank, 14901 S. IL-59, Plainfield Fire Chief Jon Stratton said.

The truck was then engulfed in flames. Photos show flames shooting from the roof of the truck's cargo hold. The fire started in the rear on the truck and ignited the truck's wooden floor, which was filled with packages, Stratton said.

The truck driver used a fire extinguisher against the flames, but did not fully put out the blaze. FedEx's truck had 331,000 miles on it and had recently had rear brake work done, the chief said.

"He did a good job of knocking [the fire] down and getting some packages out of there," Stratton said. "He did the best he could."

At about 10:48 a.m., the Plainfield Fire Protection District got a call of a FedEx truck on fire. The first call about the truck in flames mentioned it being in the parking lot of the Starbucks closer to 127th Street, and not at the correct location of the parking lot shared by Starbucks and Heartland Bank near Rte. 126, Stratton said.

After being temporarily diverted, firefighters arrived at the scene and extinguished the fire. Nobody was hurt in the fire, Stratton said. Because the driver pulled off of IL-59, road closures were avoided.

FedEx brought in a crew to clean up and salvage the packages from the truck, Stratton said.