‘Like a war zone’: 27K pounds of deodorant cans carried by semi explode in Oklahoma

BIG CABIN, Okla. — A semi truck caught fire at a northeastern Oklahoma truck stop on Friday, causing 27,000 pounds of women’s deodorant aerosol cans to explode, authorities said.

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The fiery explosion occurred at about 5 a.m. CDT at a Love’s Travel Stop near Big Cabin, KOKI reported. The truck pulled into the stop after having brake issues, which caused the vehicle’s tires to catch fire, according to firefighters at the scene. The cans of Degree deodorant were ignited, supplying witnesses with an August version of Fourth of July fireworks.

Kevin Oakley, chief of the Big Cabin Fire Department, told the television station that the area around the truck stop was “like a war zone.”

“It looks like Roman candles going off,” Oakley told KOKI. “And you’re walking through everything, it looks like a war zone. Especially at 5 o’clock in the morning.”

Oakley said the driver attempted to put out the blaze with a fire extinguisher but the flames quickly spread.

“I was just dumbfounded at how it was ... deodorant,” a woman named Carol at the truck stop told KOKI. “I mean, it literally did not that it would explode like that.”

Big Cabin Fire Department officials called in a company to help clean the thousands of cans scattered across the parking lot, the television station reported.

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