One person is dead and another is hospitalized after a multi-vehicle crash on Northwest Loop 1604 caught fire Wednesday morning, shutting down a stretch of the highway near Northwest Military Highway. The San Antonio Fire Department says the crash turned fatal after one of the vehicles involved caught fire.
The portion of Loop 1604 at Northwest Military Highway was closed to traffic by 10:15 a.m. Wednesday, according to the Texas Department of Transportation. As of the latest update from KSAT, the identity and cause of death for the person killed had not yet been determined, per the fire department. A second crash victim was taken to a local hospital with injuries that have not been disclosed, SAFD said.
Crash Site Sits Inside Major Highway Expansion Zone
The crash unfolded along a stretch of Loop 1604 that falls squarely within TxDOT's $1.4 billion Loop 1604 North Expansion project, a 23-mile effort to widen the outer beltway from four to ten lanes and ease regional congestion between SH 16 and I-35. The Northwest Military Highway crash site sits within Segment 1 of that project, covering Loop 1604 from Bandera Road to I-10, which carries its own $148 million construction budget, according to a report shared on Facebook. Active work zones and shifting ramp configurations along that segment have repeatedly complicated traffic flow for San Antonio drivers navigating the corridor.
This is not the first serious incident along this exact stretch of highway. In April, an 18-wheeler cab caught fire and burned to ashes on the Loop 1604 access road between Northwest Military Highway and Bitters Road, closing lanes for hours while hazmat crews spent six hours cleaning up fluid spills, as reported by KENS 5. In May, a pedestrian was struck and killed along the south shoulder of the North Loop 1604 access road between Lockhill Selma Road and Northwest Military Highway, a death cited during municipal discussions on high-risk pedestrian corridors, per a report shared on Facebook.
Loop 1604 Ranked Among San Antonio's Deadliest Roads
Local legal safety analyses consistently classify Loop 1604 among San Antonio's most hazardous roadways, with the beltway tied to more than 190 traffic fatalities over the past decade, according to the Harper Law Firm. Local analysts regularly rank the loop alongside Culebra Road, I-35, and Loop 410 as among the area's highest-risk routes.
Bexar County recorded 48,522 motor vehicle crashes and 215 traffic fatalities in 2024, according to Texas Department of Transportation data reported by J.A. Davis & Associates. That same data logged nearly 800 suspected serious injuries countywide that year. Statewide, traffic fatalities across Texas fell to 3,809 in 2025, an eight percent decrease from 2024 levels, according to TxDOT crash records analyzed by Angel Reyes & Associates, with Texas traffic deaths declining steadily since a peak in 2021.
Response Crews and Reporting Requirements
TxDOT operates its Highway Emergency Response Operator program across 239 miles of San Antonio freeways, including Loop 1604, to clear crash scenes and manage traffic in an effort to prevent secondary collisions, according to KSAT. Transportation officials estimate that roughly 20 percent of highway crashes stem from secondary incidents tied to earlier wrecks.
Under Texas Transportation Code § 550.062, responding officers are legally required to submit a written crash report to TxDOT within 10 days for any collision resulting in death, personal injury, or property damage of $1,000 or more, per FindLaw. Those reports feed into TxDOT's statewide crash database once filed. Separately, Texas Transportation Code § 550.021 makes it a second-degree felony for a driver to fail to stop and render aid after an accident resulting in death, according to the Texas Constitution and Statutes.
It remains unclear what caused the multi-vehicle crash or which vehicle caught fire first. The identity of the person killed, the cause of death, and the extent of the hospitalized victim's injuries had not been released as of Wednesday morning, according to SAFD.
