Wisconsin truck carrying 20,000 pounds of cheese catches fire

April 19 (UPI) -- Thousands of pounds of cheese went up in flames after a semi-truck in Wisconsin caught fire on a highway.

The truck was carrying 20,000 pounds of Kraft and Velveeta in West Allis when the driver realized the vehicle's brakes had caught on fire

He quickly pulled over to the parking lot of a nearby Office Max and tried to put out the fire himself before disconnecting the cab and contacting the fire department.

"Because the contents of the trailer were packed so tightly and it was on fire inside, we decided to bring in a front-end loader to open it up so we could get water in and make sure the fire was completely extinguished," West Allis Assistant Fire Chief Kurt Zellmann told Fox 6.

The City of West Allis shared a photo of the truck that was completely charred after the combination of the cheese and diesel fuel resulted in a raging fire.

"It's a very difficult fire once the cheese gets going," Zellmann said. "We also had a diesel...the combination of cheese and diesel fuel made for a pretty hot fire."

No one was hurt in the incident and fire officials said the driver made the right choice to minimize damage by pulling into the empty parking lot.