Fire causes M6 chaos

Traffic tailed back nearly 12 miles on the southbound carriageway of the M6 from Birmingham to Cannock today following a lorry fire.

The driver tried to pull off the motorway between Junction 6 and 7 at Great Barr at around 5.55am as his cab caught fire.

It follows traffic chaos yesterday morning when a fatal accident saw the northbound carriageway shut before Junctions 6 and 7.

Today's incident forced the closure of the inside lane from around 6.15am for an hour.

There were tailbacks stretching as far as Junction 11 at Cannock while the lane was closed so firefighters could fight the blaze, which took them nearly half an hour to bring under control.

The recovery of the vehicle took place at 8.24am.

Highways Agency spokeswoman Jo Carroll said: "The accident did cause problems. On our screen the tailbacks were visible from Junction 7 to Junction 11."