A man was killed in a fiery overnight crash near Houston's Second Ward early Sunday, when his car slammed into a parked 18-wheeler, veered off the road and caught fire. Police were called to the scene in the pre-dawn hours and were left to piece together how the single-vehicle wreck turned deadly on a quiet stretch of street just east of downtown.
According to police, the crash happened around 3:30 a.m. near Dorset and Munn Street, in the Second Ward area on the eastern edge of downtown Houston. Officers who responded found the wreckage of a car along with the parked big rig it had struck, and worked to secure the scene while they began looking into what had happened in the darkness.
Investigators say the driver slammed into the parked 18-wheeler and then ran off the road. The force of the collision was severe, and in the aftermath the car caught fire, adding a dangerous blaze to a scene that officers and emergency crews had to bring under control in the early morning hours before they could fully assess what had occurred.
The driver of the car died at the scene. He was the only person reported killed in the crash, and authorities have not released his identity. The fire that engulfed the vehicle compounded the tragedy of the wreck, leaving behind a burned-out car near the parked truck that the driver had struck moments earlier along the roadway.
As of early Sunday, police said it is not yet known whether speed or alcohol may have played a role in the crash. Those questions are central to the investigation, and officers were working to reconstruct the moments leading up to the impact, including how fast the car may have been traveling and why it struck the parked 18-wheeler.
No other injuries were reported, and there was no immediate word on the owner or occupants of the parked truck. The cause of the crash remained under investigation, and police were expected to release more information once the scene was cleared and the man who died could be formally identified by authorities.