The traffic was heavy on I-Route 207 as all of the cars and trucks were finally moving again after a slight bit of Tyranitar-related impromptu road reconstruction. Truck driver Ken Worth knew it was only going to get worse, he spoke with some other GS Transport drivers before making his Sinnoh run and they all told him that traffic usually jammed up around the Mount Coronet Road Tunnel which he was now approaching.
The blue GS Transport Truck #653 hauling mining equipment was sandwiched between the refrigerated yellow Hisui Foods box truck of driver Trent Maroun, with his load of margarine, and the suspiciously pure white NQA Trucking rig of Andy Austin. Ken and his partner Fennekin had no idea just how bad a place that was to be as carelessly discarded cigarette had started a fire in an air intake on Trent's truck while Andy was a rookie driver with a very explosive cargo of ammonium nitrate aboard bound for some Team Rockets grunts, and hanks to some likely deliberate withholding of information he had no idea was a dangerous load. All three drivers were clueless about the developing situation as Trent hadn't picked up on the currently minor intake fire. He looked down at his gauges and noticed the motor temperature one was reading a little above normal but as the road was starting an uphill climb toward the tunnel, he just figured the engine was putting in more effort and paid it no mind.
In the cab of Truck #653 Ken and Fennekin were both looking at the Hisui Foods truck but neither noticed the occasional puff of minor white smoke that was starting to appear from intake stack. Instead Ken was watching both the truck and traffic. His truck was more designed for intercity highway runs than the box truck and he had no plans to spend the day stuck behind it. There was a moment of lighter traffic and Ken wanted to pass Trent before the tunnel and as the road leveled out he knew this was his last chance to do so before traffic gathered up again.
"Alright, I'm going for it," Ken said. "Check the mirror, clear on your side?"
"Fen," Fennekin barked in reply with a quick glance toward the mirror on his side of the truck.
Ken turned on his blinkers and gave the steering wheel a mild turn as he started to swing out. He was just about to go for the accelerator and pass Trent when suddenly an extremely low-flying Braviary swooped down toward the road right into the path of Ken's truck. Ken steered back behind Trent's truck to avoid hitting it as it flew past. A Braviary is a big bird and they usually weigh more than 90 pounds, or 41 kilograms, so while hitting one surely wouldn't stop the big rig it would do some notable damage. Ken had friends who were pilots and knew from their experience that a bird strike was something to be avoided if there was a safe way to do so. At this moment Ken was just glad he didn't have to worry about the damage that comes from hitting a bird in the air, it was less of an issue on the ground but still not a fun experience.
Ken was still a rookie trainer and neither he nor Fennekin knew all that much about Braviary so they didn't know they weren't native to Sinnoh anymore. The red, white, and blue bird swooped back up and away from the road before many other people saw it and then it made an unnatural pause in mid-air before taking on a rainbow glow and transforming back into its natural state, a somewhat familiar pink Mew. The Mew looked down at traffic as the three trucks stayed in formation and drove off into the distance. Mew could only hope this worked out.
Back in the truck Ken was frustrated as traffic started picking up again so that would be his only shot to pass the Hisui Foods truck. The CB radio cackled to life.
"Hey what was that about?" Trent asked. "If you wanted to pass you should have done it not half tried it."
"Some big bird was flying too low and didn't feel like cleaning feathers out of my windshield," Ken said.
"It's fate bud," Trent replied. "Clearly you need to carefully examine the back of my truck so you can know what brand of margarine to buy next time you're at a grocery store. We're the only ones with that classic Hisui taste."
"Classic Hisui taste?" Ken retorted. "It's margarine dude, that stuff is more artificial than a Porygon. It's all chemicals. My mother said it's only one molecule away from being straight up plastic."
"It does taste good on toast though," Andy noted.
Ken chuckled as the minor conversation, not noticing the white puffs of smoke from Trent's truck were getting more common. The fire was starting to spread down the air intake toward the engine. All three trucks continued onward as the Mount Coronet Road Tunnel came into view. As they were approaching from the south all three trucks could drive straight into the tunnel, not stopping until they reached the toll plaza at its northern end. Trent noticed on his gauges that his truck was continuing to run hotter and hotter but again he shrugged it off as a minor issue to check later. If it persisted, he could stop on the other end of the tunnel. He drove straight into the tunnel with Ken and Andy following close behind. The bright sunny day quickly gave way to the dimly lit, gray concrete tunnel. All three trucks turned on their headlights. The tunnel had two lanes with one lane of traffic in each direction. Today the northbound lanes in the tunnel were especially busy as all of the Tyranitar delayed traffic surged through the southern entrance.
The Mount Coronet Road Tunnel is a modern passage with multiple safety measures in place. A fire inside the tunnel is one of the worst-case scenarios it can face, putting large amounts of smoke, gas, and flames in an enclosed space where they could cause havoc. The tunnel had its own fire department and emergency responders positioned in a station at its southern end and a control room at the northern end that could monitor traffic via cameras and sensors. A radio station and several message boards could update drivers about current conditions on the fly, the former being a good thing since normal, satellite, and CB radios did not work in its underground conditions. Cell phones also had no service in the tunnel. If the worse happened there were also several security shelters with fireproof doors that drivers could leave their vehicles and take refuge in until a rescue could arrive, each featuring a phone to the control room. In the event of an issue non-emergency access to the tunnel could be restricted, stopping traffic at the northern toll gates and automatically dispatching a work crew to put up barricades to stop the traffic on the southern side.
As Trent's truck entered the tunnel the white smoke coming out of the stack went from puffs to a steady stream. Trent couldn't see this from inside the cab of his truck, the stacks were behind his cab and the truck's mirrors faced down toward traffic. Ken was also mainly watching traffic until he sniffed the air and suddenly caught a hint of something burning. Given his partner was a fire type he quickly glanced over at Fennekin, wondering if the little fox had sneezed or something. He quickly noticed he hadn't and that worried him.
"Ah Fennekin, do you smell something burning?" Ken asked.
The little fox sniffed the air. He immediately realized the issue.
"Fen fen," barked Fennekin, pointing upward.
Ken took notice and finally saw the white smoke. The look on Ken's face turned from inquisitive to horror when he followed the source of the smoke and realized it was coming from the intake stack on Trent's truck.
"Oh dang," Ken said. "He's got a mechanical problem of some kind. I hope that's not a fire."
Ken hoped Trent's truck was just running hot but most importantly he hoped that Trent knew what was happening and didn't stop. Normally a fire onboard means a truck driver should stop immediately but, in a tunnel, the logical thing to do is actually reversed; a driver should keep going as long as possible to try and get out of the tunnel before it takes hold. Slowing down or stopping can accidently give a fire more oxygen, causing it to flare up much faster. Without the CB radio Ken started turning the high beam option on his truck's headlights on and off trying to alert Trent to the fact he had an issue. As they drove further and further into the tunnel oncoming traffic in the southbound lane also started to notice the smoke and began doing the same thing. Trent was wondering what was going on but hadn't picked up on it yet.
The smoke was hanging across the ceiling of the tunnel and it tripped a detector indicting a noticeable reduction in visibility in front of the sensor. In the tunnel's control room just set off an automatic alarm and a computerized order to stop traffic into the tunnel was sent out. At the toll plaza all of the gates flipped to closed, cutting off traffic from entering in the northbound lane. It would take a few minutes for the work crew to put up a barricade and update the automatic signs to close traffic from the southbound lane, allowing more vehicles to enter the tunnel before traffic there too was cut off. The control room operators were annoyed, the system would take at least 10 minutes to reset and most of the time it did this it was just the sensor being set to an overly sensitive setting. Looking at the monitors from the security cameras they could see a smoking truck but it was still moving at normal speed and there were no flames. Initially it looked like another false alarm, they sometimes happened when one of the smoky diesel trucks malfunctioned, so there was little panic. Still, they began to monitor the situation while working to try and reset the alarm to get traffic moving again.
In the tunnel a southbound GS big rig blew its horn at Trent to try and alert him to the issue. For a moment the Hisui Foods driver wondered if that driver was trying to say hello to his fleet mate Ken in the truck behind him but then an alarm sounded in his cab. Trent looked down and noticed it was one indicting dangerous levels of engine overheating. He glanced at the engine temperature gauge and noted it was maxing out. A level that high didn't mean an engine issue, it meant fire. The danger of the situation started dawning on Trent. He put his truck's hazard lights on. Behind him Ken's face got an even more nervous look on it, those lights meant Trent knew about the growing issue but did it also mean he was about to stop? To Ken's horror, it did.
The brake lights on the Hisui Foods truck came on and the yellow truck slowed to a stop, now about halfway inside the seven-mile-long tunnel. Ken and Andy put the brakes on their rigs and so did all of the traffic behind them. The three trucks came to rest right alongside one of the tunnel's emergency shelters. Unfortunately, the sudden stop caught out one car driver well behind the developing chaos, he rear-ended a pickup truck causing it to spin and block the other lane about a mile back from the big rigs. Traffic in the north and southbound lanes was now blocked and traffic backed up in both lanes. Several cars ended up parked right next to Ken and Andy's trucks but thankfully the lineup stopped just short of the burning rig.
Trent unbuckled in his cab and reached under his seat for a fire extinguisher. He pressed a yellow button on the dash to set the parking brake, a standard feature on all 750 Eeveeliner trucks. If he hoped to extinguish the fire the window to do so had certainly already passed, he hopped out of his truck and turned to face it with the extinguisher only to be blown back as flames erupted out from underneath the cab and raced out the top of its smokestacks. Stopping the truck indeed gave the fire easier access to the oxygen it needed and it was burning out of control. The puffy white smoke gave way to a putrid, thick black smoke. Ken and Andy grabbed extinguishers from their trucks, with Ken also grabbing a familiar Luxury Ball and Dive Ball, and ran up to aid the distressed driver. Ken, Fennekin, and Andy were there within seconds but it was already clear it was too late to stop the margarine truck from going up in flames. Trent emptied the contents of his extinguisher but making little impact he realized what was going to happen.
"Get back, the fire's taking hold," Trent yelled.
"Not if we can help it," Ken said, tossing the two Poké Balls he'd brought. "Alolan Vulpix and Buizel drop the hammer!"
With a flash Ken's two Pokémon with moisture-based attacks appeared. Ken activated his fire extinguisher, signaled the others to follow, and made a run toward the truck.
"Buizel, water gun, and Vulpix, powder snow, aim for the flames," Ken yelled.
Ken's Pokémon fired from further back while Ken blasted from his extinguisher as he ran in close. Neither the attacks nor the extinguisher were having all that much of an impact when suddenly Andy jerked Ken back. It was a good thing he did because at that moment one of the truck's tires on the other side, nearest the wall, exploded due to the fire. The whole truck shuddered and burning bits fell off the truck right to where Ken had been standing.
"Whoa," Ken said. "Thanks for the save."
"Don't get in close," Andy said. "There's no way we've got the stuff to extinguish it. Maybe we can delay the spread a bit until the fire crews get here but let's not get dead. If that gets the diesel tanks or the tires, we're up that infamous creek without a paddle."
"You're right," Ken said. "Let's play defense, not offense. Buizel, do a lap of the truck and water gun straight at the tires and the fuel tanks. Vulpix follow him and powder snow the same areas."
With a quick response of "Bui" and "Vul" both Pokémon sprang into action. A spray of water to put out any flames on top of the tires was quickly followed by an icy coating to cover them and the fuel tanks. That would only hold the back the flames for a few minutes at best but maybe that would be enough for professional firefighters to come and solve the problem. Unfortunately for the truckers, there was a delay they didn't know about on that front.
With flames now visible on the cameras the tunnel's operators called for assistance. At the southern end of the tunnel its fire department sprang into action but their attempt to race to the rescue was thwarted by the fender-bender blocking the tunnel, stopping their trucks dead in their tracks. Several firefighters grabbed their equipment and Poké Balls containing powerful water-type Pokémon before continuing on foot, while a few stayed to help the drivers in the minor accident, but the delay meant it would take several more minutes for them to reach the burning truck and time was not something on anyone's side. No one also knew yet of the danger in Andy's truck.
Back at the fire the drivers and passengers of vehicles behind the trucks were running for the shelters as an emergency broadcast was being directed for them to do so. Ken took note of the fact that the vehicle right behind Andy's truck was a minivan with a woman and two children running into the shelter. Both of the kids looked to be young trainers of about 10, a girl carried a Turtwig in her arms while a boy ran alongside a Ralts as they entered the shelter. An older man and his Lickitung followed closely behind. Ken sought additional firepower to fight the flames but found none.
"Either of you have any water types?" Ken asked.
"I'm not a trainer at all," Andy said.
"Me neither," added Trent.
Fennekin sniffed the air and found it oddly pleasant, with just a hint of a kitchen at breakfast time. Remembering the margarine cargo in the burning truck he started barking wildly to get Ken's attention. Once he had it he pointed to his nose and then the Hisui Foods truck. Ken put two and two together and smelled it too, the aroma was a somewhat pleasant buttery aroma...but the only thing around here like that was the margarine in the truck. The fire was likely spreading into the cargo area and then Ken's own words came back to haunt him.
"It's all chemicals…it's only one molecule away from being straight up plastic."
Plastic and oil-based products burn easily. Margarine is mostly made from vegetable oil and anyone who has ever had a grease fire on their stove knows it can be pretty easy to cause flames with that if one isn't careful. The energy content is higher than one would expect, being almost as high as gasoline when it is melted, and if it was on fire then it was only a matter of time before the entire truck burned to the ground, especially with all the rubber, diesel, and the insulated lining of the refrigerated cargo section, likely made from polystyrene, that would also fuel the soon to be inferno. Truckers were all too familiar with these risks, there was a mountain tunnel fire in Kalos a few years ago involving a truck carrying tires that crashed and it spread to other vehicles including the other big rigs stuck behind the flames. Tunnel fires are especially dangerous because there are so few outputs through which heat can escape, amplifying the danger significantly. The hot gases or fuel leaking and catching fire can easily cause a one-vehicle fire to grow and engulf many more of them.
"We need to get out of here," Trent said. "There's a shelter over there. I suggest we use it."
"Yeah, I only hope the fire crew gets it out before it spreads," Ken replied. "I'd hate to lose my truck but it's just a machine, I can get another one."
"Yeah, loss of a truck and cargo is sad but they're easier to replace then lives," Andy said. "I guess the farmers in northern Sinnoh will need to find another truck of ammonium nitrate fertilizer with which to grow their crops if we lose this one."
That simple sentence's huge consequences immediately jolted through Ken, Fennekin, and Trent's heads like a record scratch. Vulpix and Buizel looked on confused but the look on Fennekin's face told him that was not good.
"You're joking right?" Trent asked. "My rig is going up in flames and this isn't the time for a sick joke."
"What do you mean, that's just my cargo," Andy said. "It's just ammonium nitrate, it's a modern chemical fertilizer. No worries."
Ken's face turned to one of anger as he shouted some certain words at Andy before turning back to the real issue.
"Ammonium nitrate is a common fertilizer but it also a very powerful, commercial-grade explosive," Ken said. "They use it in mines and quarries and for blasting on construction sites. You're supposed to study dangerous goods before you can haul them, I did when I was in truck driving school. Any trucker worth their salt should know that is a dangerous good that has no business being in a tunnel. Normally it's pretty stable but when it is in an enclosed area, like a boat or a warehouse or a truck or a tunnel, and it catches fire it can detonate with extreme power."
"Remember when those Team Magma terrorists in Hoenn blew up an International Police station a couple years ago, they packed a van full of that stuff," Trent said. "It leveled half a block. Thank goodness they called in the threat first and everyone evacuated so no one got hurt."
"If that stuff blows it will destroy everything in here, kill all of us, and probably collapse the tunnel and trap anyone who somehow survives," Ken said, noticing again that Andy's truck was parked right next to one of the shelter that others in the tunnel were now using for shelter. "Those shelters are designed for fire protection, not blast protection. We've got to keep that fire away from Andy's truck at all costs."
Ken looked over the situation and tried to come up with some solution, any solution, that could stop this day from becoming a real blast of the far too literal sense. The icy shield over the fuel tank and tires was melting away so whatever they were going to do they had to do it now. Andy's truck was pinned in by Ken's truck and the cars in the other lane, they might be able to drive it out and push those cars out of the way but it would be hard to impossible and then they would have to drive the truck packed with explosives right past the flaming truck primed to continue burning as a much larger fire.
Ken looked at his truck wondering how this day could have gone so wrong to leave him essentially parked between an inferno and a bomb. However, that look toward the front of his truck caused him to notice something that just might be their salvation: the shiny metal bullbars mounted to the front. They were made for pushing. Fennekin looked up and noticed the idea running through Ken's head. If they couldn't put out the fire maybe they relocate it away from the NQA truck by pushing the burning truck, perhaps even out getting it all the way out of the tunnel. That was a long shot but it might be the only one they had left to try.
AUTHOR'S NOTES
The situation in these chapters is loosely based of the 1999 Mont Blanc Tunnel fire and the Fréjus Road Tunnel fire with a ton of dramatic license to prevent a total tragedy like those situations.