BREA – Love letters, mortgage payments, birthday checks – and, yes, even bills – gone, burned to ashes.

If you snail-mailed something that could have found its way onto a U.S. Postal truck headed for Ontario airport earlier this week, you probably have some explaining to do.

And a quick redo.

About 120,000 letters from around Orange County burned in a fiery crash Tuesday morning involving two big-rigs on the 57 freeway. The fire closed northbound lanes for hours, and officials said all the mail – which included letters and large envelopes – was destroyed.

The mail came from the U.S. Postal Service processing center in Santa Ana and was headed around the country, Postal Service spokesman Richard Maher said. Anyone who mailed a non-local letter Monday from ZIP codes starting with 926, 927, 928, 906, 917 and 918 could be affected, Maher said.

Yes, those ZIPs cover most of Orange County.

There’s no way to track exactly which regular, 49-cent letters were on the truck, Maher added, but the Postal Service is offering documentation of the fire to anyone who might be affected with late fees or other penalties.

“Customers who mailed important items,” Maher said, “may want to follow up with recipients in the next few days to determine if their letter arrived.”

The fire began after a big-rig carrying mail rear-ended another semi-truck around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday in the right lane of the northbound 57 near Lambert Road, said Officer Florentino Olivera of the California Highway Patrol.

The tractor and its trailer were engulfed in flames and burned for about an hour. The driver, a private contractor for the Postal Service, was uninjured. The cause of the crash is being investigated by the California Highway Patrol.

The fire closed the three right lanes of the freeway for several hours. By 6:30 a.m., only the far-right lane remained closed. It reopened about 7:30 a.m.

Of course, the fire also offers a reprieve of sorts for some. That forgotten birthday card?

Blame it on the accident.

Contact the writer: ckoerner@ocregister.com or 714-704-3706

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