That explosion caused so much damage, it looks like deliberate sabotage.
That is alot of damage. I wonder who reported the fire, the driver? It’s obvious that he was gone before the explosion.
“Sappers from Oakland were seen retreating back into their slum...” /sarc
Perhaps RWA summed it up best [at post 104]:
Maybe the cab driver was a friend who was waiting nearby.
Either that or a critical juncture on a major thoroughfare fell victim to a 4 AM manifestation of Murphy's Law while the lucky truck driver hailed a convenient cab.
It looks to me like the fire caused the failure of one beam, which would be a logical consequence of a gas truck burning underneath it. The question in my mind would be whether there was any 'logical' reason for the truck to explode where it did [e.g. did it hit a post or something?]
Unlike skyscraper support structures which are extensively fireproofed, highway support structures generally are not. Skyscrapers generally house a considerable fuel load, take a significant amount of time to evacuate, and can suffer billions of dollars of damage if a support structure fails. A highway bridge like that generally won't have much of a fuel load under it, would generally take only a few seconds to get people away from, and can be repaired reasonably inexpensively. Fireproofing all such bridges would be an unreasonable expense, though perhaps in future it might make sense to fireproof some portions that extend over other roads.