One person died in a huge tanker truck fire Thursday which closed a portion of Interstate 70 Thursday morning and backed up traffic for miles.

As of early afternoon, I-70 was closed in both directions between Exit 254 – US 40 and Genesee and Exit 260 – C-470, on the west side of the Denver metro area.

Wait times to get through the area of Morrison and I-70 were between 33 minutes to almost an hour, the Colorado Department of Transportation reported. By mid-afternoon, east-bound wait times were down to just under thirty minutes.

Alternate routes which included the US 40 frontage road paralleling I-70 or US 6 through Clear Creek Canyon were already getting stacked up by early afternoon and the Colorado. Department of Transportation advised for travelers to avoid I70 at Morrison Road until late afternoon.

The driver of the tanker truck was taken to St. Anthony Hospital according to hospital spokesperson Lindsay Radford. She said that he was in stable condition.

The Jefferson County Sheriff Department and Colorado Department of Transportation reported that a westbound semi overheated and when it parked on the right shoulder to cool down, a car crashed into it from behind. It was the driver of the oncoming car who died, according to sources close to the crash investigation who wished not to be identified.

According to a post on X, the Colorado State Patrol said that “spilled fuel overflowed through a culvert and across the eastbound lanes.” That culvert is being inspected, leading to further traffic delays.

That stretch of I70 is heavily traveled route for freight trucks. Tamara Rolleson with the Colorado Department of Transportation said that “crews will be assessing where there was damage to the highway infrastructure from the fire.”

Colorado Politics reporter Marianne Goodland was on her way to Rifle for work at around 9:30 am when she first saw the smoke.

“It was a good hundred feet in the air and it was very black smoke,” Goodland said. “My immediate reaction was ‘that’s not a forest fire.'”

After around 45 minutes, the smoke had turned white and by 10:45, the fire was out, but the roads were still closed as fire fighting crews in hazmat suits doused the tanker truck. Crews were also dumping water on the side of the highway to stop the spread of the fire.

Aerial views of appeared to show a car or SUV, also scorched by fire, which may have crashed into the back of the tanker.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said that a tanker truck and six cars were “fully involved” in flames and advised to stay away from the area at least until around noon.

This story is being updated as information becomes available.