A fiery, deadly collision about 15 kilometres south of Prince George left one person dead and closed Highway 97 in both directions late Wednesday afternoon.
Police were called to the scene of a crash between a pickup truck and a semi truck on Highway 97 near the intersection of Buckhorn Lake Road at approximately 3 p.m.
The driver of the pickup truck - the only person in the vehicle - was found dead at the scene. The semi truck driver suffered minor injures and was forced to leave the truck as it burst into flames.
The semi driver was taken to hospital for treatment.
RCMP Traffic Service investigators, a RCMP collision reconstructionist from Williams Lake, WorkSafe BC, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Enforcement Unit and the BC Coroners Service are investigating the cause of the crash.
Lynda Simons didn't see how the crash happend, but she got a close look at the aftermath.
She was checking her mailbox on Damms Road when she heard a "huge explosion."
She turned around to see a semi truck about 100 metres away "engulfed in flames coming down the highway" and a pickup truck off on the other side of the road.
"The fuel from the semi or something was spread right across Highway 97 and it was on fire," Simons said. "You couldn't even get from this side of the semi to the north side of the semi."
Simons was rattled but still had the wherewithal to take some photos on her cellphone.
"I'm still a little bit in shock," she said about two hours after the collision.
She said the driver of the semi got out on his own and was sitting on the side of the road.
At the time, Simons had no idea what happened to the driver of the pickup truck.
The collision occurred just north of the Damms Road-Buckhorn Lake Road intersection, according to Simons, just at the beginning of a dip in the road. Simons said she's never seen anything like it in the time she's lived there.
"I didn't see it actually happen, I'd just seen the semi coming sideways in flames down the highway," she said.
As of 9:20 p.m., on Wednesday DriveBC was reporting Highway 97 remained closed to traffic in both directions. Traffic was expected to resume around midnight on Wednesday.
