I-71, U.S. 50 reopen after deadly crash leads to downtown fire; no structural damage done

Interstate 71 and U.S. 50 are back open downtown after a deadly semi-truck crash sparked a large fire on the interstate.Crews were working along Fort Washington Way late into the night to clean up and assess the damage. Police, firefighters and crews from the Ohio Department of Transportation were investigating the damage for nearly five hours overnight.Firefighters say a semi crashed into a wall on Fort Washington Way, which is part of I-71, then caught fire. Smoke and flame could be seen from miles away, stretching up onto the U.S. 50 overpass above.The driver of the semi was trapped inside. Bystanders and first responders tried to save him, but he died from his injuries. He has not been publicly identified.Firefighters say it took them six minutes to get o scene, which was longer than expected, because of the difficult location.Despite the size of the fire, ODOT officials say they did not find any structural damage, which is why they were able to reopen the highways so quickly."There is some barrier wall that people can see that looks like it's damaged. That will be debatable whether or not that's going to be repaired, or just, to simply take it out, we don't necessarily need that," explained ODOT's Kathleen Fuller. "That's not a structural item, and again, you can see some damage to a barrier wall but that really has nothing to do with the travel lanes. So no repairs are going to be needed to the structure."ODOT says I-71 took longer to reopen because there was already planned construction work there.The crash remains under investigation by Cincinnati police.