WARRIOR — Interstate 65 has reopened to traffic Friday evening, after the highway was closed completely for much of the afternoon because of a massive tanker truck fire.

The truck caught fire near mile marker 279 of the northbound lane, not far from where another crash occurred early in the morning that resulted in the death of a Hayden man. The driver of the tanker truck was able to pull onto the shoulder once he realized the truck was burning, and was able to get out of the cab without injury.

But with 500 gallons of fuel on board, the blaze was simply too much for fire department water trucks to handle without a supply from a fire hydrant. So Alabama State Troopers closed I-65 in both directions, and let the fire burn out.

Traffic was diverted onto U.S. 31 at exit 280 in the southbound lanes, and exit 275 northbound, bringing traffic in Morris and Kimberly to a crawl.

The right lane on the northbound side remains close immediately adjacent to the fire scene; the left two lanes are open. All three southbound lanes are clear.

The fire was the biggest of four traffic headaches in north Jefferson County on Friday, including:

• The fatal crash between an overturned 18-wheeler and a Jeep near exit 280 caused backups in the morning rush hour, in which the truck driver was taken to UAB Hospital with what a state trooper spokesman called “serious injuries.” Per federal patient privacy regulations, that driver’s name has not been released.
• Another crash just outside the Morris city limits on Morris Majestic Road involved another overturned 18-wheeler. There’s no official word on whether there were any serious injuries.
• And there’s the ongoing situation on I-65 southbound at the I-22 interchange construction zone, just north of the Daniel Payne Drive/41st Street exit. The road has been narrowed to one lane there while crews try to fix what’s been called by a trooper’s spokesman as “deterioration” of the pavement. That work caused major delays as far north as Fieldstown Road in Gardendale during the day Friday. No word yet on when all three lanes will reopen; until that happens, expect delays to continue.