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Truck carrying three African elephants catches fire in Tennessee

By Ben Hooper
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Nov. 21 (UPI) -- Firefighters in Tennessee responded to a stretch of highway where a tractor-trailer caught fire and evacuated its occupants: three African elephants.

The Chattanooga Fire Department said firefighters responded about 2 a.m. Monday to a stretch of Interstate 24 near the Georgia state line on a report of a tractor-trailer on fire.

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Battalion Chief Lesley Morgan said the tractor was on fire, but the flames had not spread to the trailer.

The owners had removed the elephants from the trailer and they ate some hay at the side of the highway while firefighters worked to extinguish the flames.

A second trailer was brought in to take the elephants the rest of the way to Sarasota, Fla.

Jerry Fuhs, president of Wilstem Ranch in French Lick, Ind., said the elephants -- named Mikia, Lovey and Lou -- spend nine months of the year in Indiana and the fire broke out while they were en route to their "winter home" in Sarasota, WTVC reported.

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