WHETSTONE — A tanker truck carrying more than 8,000 gallons of fuel overturned Wednesday afternoon after a wreck on Highway 90, causing people in nearby homes and businesses to be evacuated and traffic to be rerouted for hours.

The remains of the van driven by Richard Smith, 57, after the vehicle collided with a fuel tanker on Highway 90 in Whetstone Wednesday morning. Smith was airlifted to the University Medical Center in Tucson for his injuries. UMC officials were not available to comment on his condition as of Thursday evening.

During the initial hours after the crash, no fuel appeared to have leaked from the tanker. But later in the evening, a small amount of fuel was discovered to have leaked out.

 Shortly after the wreck, which happened at approximately 1:45 p.m., officers blocked off traffic at the intersection of highways 90 and 82. That was about two miles south of the site of the wreck, to mile post 298, near Kartchner Caverns State Park, said Joy Craig, a public information officer for the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

Residents within a mile radius of the scene were urged to evacuate the area.

Just before 5:30 p.m., DPS officials began reducing the size of the evacuation area and allowed residents living on Sunset Street and Black Street in Whetstone back to their homes.

The wreck occurred when a passenger van collided with the tanker truck, DPS officials in Phoenix said.

“It appears that the northbound vehicle lost control, crossed the median and went into the path of the southbound tanker truck,” Craig said.

The tanker truck was turned upside down.

“It was a pretty violent wreck,” she said.

There were two people inside the van. The injured driver was airlifted to Tucson, while the passenger of the van and the driver of the tanker were treated locally, Craig said.

The destination of the fuel tanker was unknown during the hours directly following the incident.

At approximately 8 p.m., Whetstone Fire Department Fire Chief Peter Bidon described the next step in clearing the road.

“Now we’re going to get into the most dangerous part of the operation, which is offloading the fuel,” Bidon said.

A second fuel tanker was brought for the transfer of fuel from the wrecked tanker, which Bidon said belonged to a company called Coastal.

Hazardous material teams from the Arizona Department of Transportation, the Fry Fire District and DPS assisted in assessing the tanker’s status, Bidon said.

A small amount of fuel had leaked out of the tanker, he said.

“As far as how much is leaking and how fast, we can’t say,” Bidon said.

“There was a puddle on the ground, however. We’ve been out here since about 1:30, so to our advantage, it’s not pouring out of the truck.”

The process for switching fuel from one tanker to the next was estimated to take up to three hours, which would have pushed back the road reopening to traffic to at least 1 a.m., he said.

Whetstone resident Amber Jarvis, 15, said the wreck occurred very close to her home, which faces the highway.

“It was right there,” Jarvis said. “You could look out the window and look right at it.”

The wreck was so close, Jarvis could hear the collision.

“It was just this loud bang, and everyone was honking their horns,” she said.

Vanessa Baxter, Jarvis’ mother, called her at home after the teen attempted to contact her at work.

“She said a tanker wrecked right in front of our house,” Baxter said.

Within minutes of Baxter’s arrival at the intersection of highways 90 and 82, DPS officers were able to pick up Jarvis from her home and bring her to her mother.

A number of law enforcement and government agencies were involved in the effort, including members of the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office, Huachuca City Police Department and the Department of Emergency Services, Craig said.

The Red Cross established a temporary shelter at Huachuca City Elementary School for residents who had evacuated.

Sipping hot chocolate in the school library, Julie and Robert Delgado said they had just arrived home in the early afternoon, only to be asked to leave.

“We weren’t even in the house for two minutes, and they came and said you have to leave,” Julie Delgado said.

After going to Sierra Vista to wait out what they thought would only be a delay of a couple hours, they returned to find all roads leading to their home closed off.

“We tried to sneak home to get our animals, but they had everything blocked,” she said.

About a dozen people waited at the makeshift shelter for word of when they could return to their homes.

“My honey here was just saying how Whetstone was nowhere on the map, and now here we are,” Robert Delgado said.