A man suffered critical burn injuries following a car fire on northbound Highway 400 near the Bayfield Street exit in Barrie, Thursday afternoon.
OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt, of the Highway Safety Division, told BarrieToday around 5 p.m. that the man has been taken to a trauma centre in Toronto.
No details about the man’s age or hometown were available.
The fire happened in between the on- and off-ramps at Bayfield Street.
All four lanes of northbound Highway 400 traffic were closed for a few hours Thursday afternoon as emergency crews dealt with the fire and the subsequent investigation.
The highway reopened around 4:30 p.m.
“Traffic should be relieving itself relatively quickly, I hope, but there were quite a few delays northbound, for sure, from around Essa and Dunlop, all the way up,” Schmidt said.
What led to the fire remains under investigation.
“I don’t know how the fire started or what was the source of the fire, whether it was electrical, a malfunction or what the issues were,” Schmidt said. “They’re doing more of that investigation right now off the highway.”
Thursday's car fire happened almost directly across from where a multi-vehicle crash occurred last week in the southbound lanes.
