A wild Saturday afternoon near a Chico taco stand

Man reportedly asleep at the wheel takes out bus stop, starts fire

By Ken Magri

Last Saturday afternoon around 5:00 pm, I was standing at a food truck on Cohasset and Christi ordering tacos when I heard an insanely loud boom. It was followed by some sort of electrical screech.

I knew it might be a car crash, though I heard no squealing tires.

As I walked around the food truck to see what was happening, I heard a second boom and saw a flash of light on a power pole about a half block away. A truck was stopped along the road at a diagonal, and some dry grass caught fire in the adjacent vacant lot next to Provincial Chico Senior Living.

Cars pulled over along Cohasset as neighbors came out of their houses.

“Has anyone called 911 yet?” a woman asked. “Oh, jeez, we haven’t.”

So she got out her call phone and called in the fire.

The truck driver – who authorities soon noted apparently fell asleep while heading south – veered into a B-Line bus stop right next to a power line. The driver turned his vehicle around to leave, but hit a fence across the street and started another small fire next to a four-plex.

Two residents ran out with a garden hose and extinguished the flare-up while fire trucks were still arriving.

Another resident ran towards the grass fire with a large bucket of water, before realizing one bucket would do little to stop the spread.

Meanwhile neighbors were confirming with one another that the power was out, as more people came outside to see what was happening.

“The TV’s not working, so we might as well watch this,” said one resident sitting on a bench.

A fire pumper showed up within five minutes, followed by an ambulance and two police vehicles, which immediately blocked off Cohasset. After a second and third pumper arrived, the grass fire was quickly extinguished. Emergency medical technicians checked on the truck driver.

By now there were 50 or so bystanders, five squad cars and three pumpers.

“Are you going to arrest the driver?” I asked Lt. Peter Durfee, on the scene.

“I don’t think so. He fell asleep,” he answered.

“Are you saying it was an accident?” I asked.

“Looks like it,” the lieutenant said.

As I walked back to get my tacos, I was struck by the competence of everyone involved. The woman who phoned 911, the residents with a hose, the drivers who pulled over out of concern, the paramedics and fire fighters calmly did their job as the dramatic scene played itself out. Traffic had even started detouring itself before squad cars could arrive and block Cohasset.

After about an hour, the roadway reopened and everything went back to normal, except for the power outage, which took an additional day. But Chicoans can commend themselves for staying calm, staying out of the way of authorities and helping when they could, so that this didn’t turn into a bigger news story.