Massive fire damaged steel beams, deck on Daniel Carter Beard Bridge over Ohio River

Outside The Beltway
1

Interstate 471 is a major artery between Cincinnati, Ohio and Newport, Kentucky. A fire which started around 3 am in a playground under the bridge approach burned hot and high enough to warp several steel beams on the bridge, shutting it down indefinitely in both directions. The fire was hot enough to actually set the road deck itself on fire.

No word yet on the cause, but obviously a 3 am fire in a playground is a wee bit suspicious on its face.

Won’t have a time frame until engineers examine the bridge thoroughly, but obviously this will take months to fix. Until then, Cincinnati is going to be in a world of hurt, traffic wise.

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Locally, it is nicknamed the Big Mac Bridge for obvious reasons. :smile:

2

In the category of suspicious fires, we have a wildfire in Central Colorado (mostly contained now.) It burned out one house, but firefighters managed to save surrounding houses. At least that was the initial reporting.

Now it’s coming out that the house that got burned out was in foreclosure and the court had ordered it to be sold at auction. And the fire started in that house. And that fire spread into a wildfire. (160 acres, last I heard, and now 90% contained. And yes, firefighters did a great job at saving the surrounding houses.)