Highway 29 reopened after overturned fuel tanker emptied, towed

Highway 29 reopened early Friday morning, after being closed in both directions 3 miles northwest of Calistoga where a double fuel tanker overturned Thursday.

The busy two-lane highway connecting Napa and Lake counties reopened to traffic about 2 a.m., CHP said.

Unloading the tanker’s fuel was “a time-consuming process,” CHP Officer Garrett Ray said. Hazmat technicians “carefully drilled holes in the side” of the overturned tanker, he said, then pipes were inserted into those holes and used to pump fuel into an empty tanker parked on the highway.

The closure started about 10:40 a.m. Thursday, after CHP responded to an overturned truck near Old Lawley Toll Road. The driver of the tanker truck, Paramjit Singh Kullar of Pittsburg, told authorities his rear tank slid off the roadway when he swerved to avoid a truck going the opposite direction that had crossed over the double yellow lines, said ?Napa-area CHP Officer Marc Renspurger. Kullar was driving north and hauling diesel and gas tankers.

“Once (the tank) started going down the hill, it pulled the first tank down with it,” Renspurger said. “The driver was wearing his seatbelt and from what I understand some passersby stopped to help him get out of the truck.”

Kullar, 71, was ?uninjured.

The other vehicle, a Volvo semi-truck driven by 58-year-old Kevin de Angelo of Los Angeles, was heading south, and while attempting to turn left on Highway 29, veered across the yellow dividing lines into oncoming traffic. This forced Kullar to swerve right with his tanker truck to avoid a collision, officials said.

About 5 gallons of fuel leaked from the tanker truck’s gas line onto the hillside, after it toppled into the ditch. Neither of the fuel tankers leaked, however.

“It was a lengthy process,” said Ray, “but we were fortunate to avoid a major incident.”