The truck carrying the coir consignment was gutted in fire on Thursday.

A 34-year-old truck driver suffered minor injuries after the vehicle carrying coir caught fire when it came in contact with a live overhead cable in Kakangarai village near Jolarpet town in Tirupattur on Thursday.

Police said that the driver S. Anandan, a native of Vishamangalam village, managed to jump off the vehicle before the driver’s cabin caught fire. The truck was carrying coir from Matrapalli village to Tirupattur.

When the truck reached Kakangarai village on Tirupattur – Natrampalli Main Road, coir touched the low-lying live cable that triggered a fire. However, the driver did not notice this and was driving the vehicle when the fire spread to the entire load of coir.

The villagers who noticed this, drew the attention of the driver to the fire. Immediately, the driver steered the wheel into the extreme end of the stretch and stopped it. He managed to climb onto the vehicle and pushed down the coir bundles on the road, to prevent the fire from spreading further. He then jumped off the vehicle.

In the impact, he suffered minor injuries. The locals alerted the fire and rescue services officials from Natrampalli, who rushed to the scene and put out the flames. They battled for nearly an hour to douse the fire.

By then, the truck got completely gutted along with the consignment of coir. Since there were not many vehicles plying on the road at the time of the accident, which occurred around 1 p.m, traffic was not affected. A case was registered by Natrampalli police. A probe is underway.