CNG truck explosion caused by bad battery

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A defective battery led to a trash truck explosion in New Jersey last week that sent one of the truck’s compressed natural gas cylinders flying into a nearby home.

No one was injured in the Jan. 26 fire which damaged three other Hamilton Township homes and was videoed by a nearby resident.

“It appears to be an electric fire that then spread to the area where the CNG cylinders are stored,” Hamilton Police Capt. James Stevens tells NGT News. “The fire began in the battery box before spreading under the CNG cylinders.”

The garbage truck’s operators told investigators that before the truck erupted in flames and exploded, smoke could be seen coming from under the hood. After the two workers with Central Jersey Waste and Recycling were unable to extinguish the fire, a call was made to 911.

As seen in the video, the truck is stopped on a residential street as it quickly catches fire. NGT News reports that the fire activated a CNG tank’s pressure relief valve causing it to release its fuel which ignited and launched the CNG tank into the dining room of a nearby home. The resident of the home had moved to the back of the house just prior to the explosion.

Central Jersey Waste and Recycling has been using its CNG refuse trucks in Hamilton Township for the past eight years.