An ice cream truck was on fire Monday on 14th Street NW near the National Mall.

Michael J Sheehan / Twitter

A ice cream truck by the National Mall was engulfed in flames at around 2:30 p.m. on Monday afternoon.

D.C. Fire and EMS arrived on the scene and extinguished the fire, the agency said. No one was injured, though the generic ice cream truck, situated on 14th Street NW between Madison and Jefferson drives, suffered major damage. The cause was accidental, and appears to have originated in the engine, says D.C. Fire spokesperson Vito Maggiolo, though investigators haven’t officially determined the final cause. The ice cream truck driver was in transit when he noticed that the engine was smoking, says Maggiolo.

D.C. Fire’s ability to respond to the scene was initially hampered because another food truck was blocking the nearest fire hydrant, says Maggiolo. “That causes a delay, and if this was a residential fire or something of that nature, this could have been a dangerous delay,” he says. D.C. police and the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs were on the scene to deal with vendor that had allegedly blocked the hydrant, per Maggiolo.

https://twitter.com/Jteisele/status/1120396982143651847

Filed Under: d.c. fire and ems, national mall,