A tractor-trailer carrying 41,000 pounds of ground beef caught fire on Interstate 35 in Troy Thursday morning, slowing traffic and triggering another accident involving a big rig about two miles away.

The initial accident, which burned the trailer to the ground, happened just before 1 a.m. but was still not cleaned up nine hours later. It caused minor delays for morning commuters traveling southbound on the interstate.

At about 8:30 a.m. a driver of a rig hauling an Auto Zone trailer apparently tried to avoid traffic by cutting across the grass at the shoulder of the interstate and onto the frontage road, said State Trooper Robert Watts.

That driver never made it to the frontage road as the front end of his trailer collapsed like an accordion.

Nobody was hurt in either accident, Watts said.

The driver hauling ground beef initially thought he was being pulled over but as he moved his rig to the shoulder realized that rather than flashing lights he was seeing flickering flames coming from the trailer, Watts said.

The driver told people cleaning up the site that the refrigeration unit on the truck started the fire. It was unclear to officials on the scene how the unit caught fire.

It took Troy and Bruceville-Eddy fire departments 25 minutes to get the fire under control, said Troy Fire Chief Jimmy Jackson.

Cleanup crews arrived at the scene around 3:30 a.m., according to a driver from S&M Waste Service. Two tractors loaded up two large trash bins with the meat.

The driver of the truck hauling the beef refused to comment about the accident.