A truck driver has died after their fuel tanker exploded on impact with a car on the Barkly highway in north-west Queensland.
Police closed the highway between Mount Isa and Cloncurry following the fiery crash, which happened about 10 kilometres west of Cloncurry.
Sergeant Ross Kirkpatrick said the B-triple tanker caught fire and exploded when it hit the vehicle.
"With that much fuel around it's really caused quite an incident, really there's not much more they can do other than let the fuel burn out for the time being."
Police later confirmed human remains had been found in the burnt out tanker which would need to forensically examined to identify them.
Paramedics assessed two people at the scene and took the 48 year old Mount Isa man who was driving the car to Townsville Hospital where he remains in a stable condition.
Mount Isa Hospital nurse Andrea Wallace, travelling to the Gregory River with her husband for an Easter camping holiday, was one of the first to arrive at the scene.
"We were driving along, my husband and myself and we went, 'That's a bit of an odd cloud' — we were probably about 15 minutes away from the actual scene," Ms Wallace said.
"As we got closer we actually seen the flames and horrific black smoke obviously knew there was something going on and as we got closer and closer, our friend Jack got the drone out and had a look and it was … pretty horrific."
The Barkly Highway was closed in both directions but has since been re-opened.
Forensic investigators are still finalising the examination of the vehicles.
