EDMONTON - A seventh person has now died after a fiery head-on crash Friday on Highway 63 near Wandering River, RCMP say.

Two others were badly injured and have been taken to Edmonton hospitals.

A northbound pickup carrying three people pulled into the oncoming lane to pass and crashed head-on into a southbound pickup carrying six passengers, police say. There was a significant fire as a result of the crash.

Information on the dead is not being released yet. All three occupants of the northbound truck died, along with four from the other truck. A 34-year-old man and a young boy were injured in the crash.

The seventh victim, a teenage girl, was pulled from the northbound truck by passing motorists before emergency crews arrived. She was flown to Edmonton and died at the Stollery Children’s Hospital.

STARS air ambulance was dispatched to the crash scene shortly after 2 p.m., said spokesman Cam Heke. STARS and transported the boy to the Stollery Children’s Hospital, where he was in stable condition.

Phoenix Helicopters, based out of Fort McMurray, transported two patients to hospital, including the teenage girl who later died. A 34-year-old man was taken to Lac La Biche hospital and later transported by aircraft to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton.

The man and boy who survived had “serious” injuries, said Alberta Health Services spokesman Kerry Williamson.

The section of Highway 63 where the crash happened, around kilometre marker 88, were closed and reopened late Friday night. Both north and southbound traffic was rerouted to Secondary Highway 881.

The 240-kilometre stretch of Highway 63 that connects the oilsands with the rest of the province is known as one of the province’s deadliest roads.

Forty-six people died in crashes on Highway 63 between 2005 and 2009, with another 310 people injured in the same period.

Plans to fully twin the highway have been in the works for years, but progress has been slow, becoming a major campaign issue in the recent provincial election. The Wildrose promised to fast track the project, while Premier Alison Redford promised that twinning the road would be an infrastructure priority for her government.

About 19 kilometres south of Fort McMurray has already been twinned, while the province hopes to have another 36-kilometre section north of Wandering River paved by fall 2013. That leaves some 185 kilometres to be twinned, a project expected to take years and cost at least $1 billion, of which Ottawa has pledged $150 million.

Traffic volume on the road was estimated at about 3,500 vehicles per day in 2008, but that number has likely grown due to rapid expansion of the oilsands.

On Dec. 9, 2008, four people were killed when the truck they were travelling in slammed into a semi-trailer about 50 kilometres north of Wandering River.

Travel on highways south of Fort McMurray was not recommended on Friday afternoon due to poor visibility and the road closure.

bwittmeier@edmontonjournal.com

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