UPPER LAKE, Calif. – California Highway Patrol officers and Northshore Fire Protection firefighters spent Monday morning on the scene of a collision involving two pickups near Blue Lakes.

The crash occurred at around 8:15 a.m. on Highway 20 near Scotts Valley Road, according to initial CHP reports.

The collision resulted in major injuries to one of the male drivers, although the initial report did not include names of those involved.

The early reports said two vehicles – a Chevrolet pickup and a Ford pickup – were off the roadway, and power lines were down.

Northshore Fire Deputy Chief Pat Brown said one of the drivers had been able to get out of his vehicle on his own, but the other pickup went off the road and landed against a tree, with firefighters having to work to extricate the male driver.

The man who had to be extricated had a 100-gallon fuel tank in the back of his pickup that was thrown out of the pickup bed by the force of the crash, landing just next to the lake, Brown said.

Brown said firefighters were able to use emergency holding tanks to deal with the fuel tank.

“Nothing actually went into the lake,” he said.

Brown said the crash took place near the site of an April 2009 incident in which a Safeway truck’s load went off the road and into Blue Lakes, as Lake County News has reported.

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