An Amazon truck burned in Kuna over the weekend, scaring residents. Here’s what we know
An Amazon delivery van burned over the weekend, scaring some residents of a Kuna subdivision.
Firefighters responded to South Allegiance Avenue in the Memory Ranch development at around 3:35 p.m. Saturday after the truck’s driver reported that the engine compartment had caught on fire, Capt. Benjamin Sterling of the Kuna Rural Fire District told the Idaho Statesman by phone.
It took firefighters nine minutes to reach the fire because the development is “a little bit further out,” Sterling said. That gave it time to grow.
When they arrived, the van was emitting heavy black smoke and the street gutter was on fire because the fuel line on the gas tank had failed. Firefighters used a hose that delivers 160 gallons of water a minute and extinguished the fire in two minutes, Sterling said.
Nobody was hurt, but the truck and its contents were a total loss. There “was nothing left but a shell,” Sterling said.
Sterling said the driver told him she had smelled a “hot metal” smell about 20 minutes before the van caught fire. But she continued making deliveries and didn’t notice anything else amiss until it ignited.
Ben Steele, 35, a senior editor for an online publication, told the Statesman that he and his family were in their house on Allegiance and started hearing “loud popping sounds.” They thought people were testing fireworks to get ready for the Fourth of July.
Then they heard a louder noise that rattled their windows. “We took a look outside and we saw a huge pillar of black smoke,” Steele said. “We actually thought that our neighbor’s house was on fire.”
He and his wife ran out of the house with their two young girls. They put them in their car and his wife drove them away, but Steele said he stayed to see what was happening. Two houses away, he saw a fire crew hosing down a burning van with an Amazon logo on its side door.
“The entire front of the truck was blown out as if the engine had blown up,” Steele said. The body of the van was scorched. There were burn marks on the road, sidewalk and nearby grass. And about 40 feet of a neighbor’s vinyl fence had melted from the heat, he said.
Sterling said he notified the Idaho State EMS Communications Center (StateComm) to make a potential hazmat report because fuel leaked from the van into a storm drain. StateComm decided it was a “small hazmat incident” but wouldn’t cause additional environmental harm, he said.
The state “will follow up to make sure that Amazon cleans up the storm drain,” he said.
Sterling said the truck was operated by a subcontractor, but he did not know that company’s name. He said when the driver’s supervisor came to the scene, he wore a shirt that read, “Amazon.”
Alisa Carroll, an Amazon spokesperson, told the Statesman by email that the company was “relieved the delivery driver is safe and that no one was harmed.”
“We’re continuing to look into what caused this incident and are making it right with customers impacted,” she said.
If customers have questions about their packages, Carroll said, they can call 1-888-280-4331 or check the Amazon app for a status update.
This story was originally published July 5, 2023 at 5:00 PM.
