The holiday travel nightmare dividing Italy eased by mid-morning Tuesday as the A1 Milan-Napoli motorway fully reopened after a 20-hour closure. The shutdown was triggered Monday afternoon when an LPG tanker caught fire due to brake failure on the northbound carriageway between the Rome North junction and Ponzano Romano.
The incident forced the closure of a critical 40-kilometer stretch near Orte, approximately 50 km north of Rome, as emergency crews worked to secure the potentially explosive tanker. This trapped hundreds of vehicles—including holiday and work traffic—in massive queues under intense sun, with local roads overwhelmed as the only detour between Umbria and Lazio. The disruption coincided with planned railway slowdowns for high-speed line upgrades between Milan and Naples throughout August.
Civil protection volunteers distributed water to stranded motorists, though many took to social media complaining of feeling abandoned. The fire, starting near kilometer 525 around 5 PM Monday from overheated brakes, did not spread to the LPG, which was safely transferred to another truck. Complex recovery operations followed. While queues within the closed section cleared by 9 PM Monday, long lines persisted at the mandatory Orte exit.
The first breakthrough came just before 11 AM Tuesday with the reopening of the southbound carriageway from Orte towards Rome. By 11:30 AM, traffic resumed in both directions on the stretch between the Rome North junction and Ponzano Romano following the northbound reopening. The section between Fiano Romano and the junction with the A1 Milan-Napoli towards Florence on the Rome North branch also reopened simultaneously. Traffic gradually normalized, though clearing the extensive backlog took hours.