{"id":158953,"date":"2026-02-01T08:17:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T08:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/158953\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T08:17:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T08:17:22","slug":"central-california-crash-59-vehicle-pileup-forces-temporary-closure-of-highway-99-in-tulare-county-chp-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/158953\/","title":{"rendered":"Central California crash: 59-vehicle pileup forces temporary closure of Highway 99 in Tulare County, CHP says"},"content":{"rendered":"

TULARE COUNTY, Calif. — Highway 99 in Tulare County has reopened after a massive pile-up forced a total closure Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

The California Highway Patrol confirms 59 vehicles were involved in the crash. A previous version of this story included a Facebook post from the County of Tulare<\/a> estimating that up to 150 vehicles were involved in the crash. CHP officers dispute that estimation.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

A screenshot of the County of Tulare’s Facebook post incorrectly estimating the number of vehicles involved in the Highway 99 pileup on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026.<\/p>\n

The CHP received several calls about the pile-up shortly after 8:15 a.m. on Saturday.<\/p>\n

“…The carnage out there. Vehicles turned over and up on each other, under each other…” CHP officer Adrian Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n

Authorities say the crashes happened on both the northbound and southbound lanes near Avenue 24. In just 11 minutes, all traffic stopped.<\/p>\n

“We had vehicle debris. We had vehicle fluid. We had involved parties that are on both shoulders, waiting for rides to get off,” Officer Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n

A crash involving nearly 60 vehicles in Tulare County forced the closure of Highway 99 in both directions, according to the California Highway Patrol.<\/p>\n

Officer Gonzalez says 10 people went to the hospital. Nine of them had minor injuries, and one had a moderate injury to their forehead. Everyone else involved was bused to the Tulare Ag Center.<\/p>\n

Investigators believe fog is a factor and estimate there was between 100 to 200 feet of visibility when the crashes happened.<\/p>\n

Just weeks ago, the dense fog caused a 17-vehicle crash on Highway 99 in Fresno County, which claimed two lives. Dashcam video from that pileup<\/a> captured how quickly the fog lowered visibility.<\/p>\n

The CHP tells Action News they learned from that crash to help with the response on Saturday, clearing all 59 vehicles and fully reopening the highway in just six hours.<\/p>\n

“We put the badges and whatever agencies aside, and ultimately our main goal is how quickly of a service can we give to this motoring public in their time of need?” Officer Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n

With more fog on the way, Officer Gonzalez with a message to drivers:<\/p>\n

“It’s very important to slow your speed down,” he said. “Not only is it going to give you time to react, but if there is an accident, it won’t be a major accident.”<\/p>\n

The investigation into the pileup continues.<\/p>\n

——–<\/p>\n

KFSN contributed to this report.<\/p>\n


<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 KGO-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TULARE COUNTY, Calif. — Highway 99 in Tulare County has reopened after a massive pile-up forced a total…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[77260,77262,7,9,8,77261,294],"class_list":{"0":"post-158953","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-150-vehicle-pileup-forces-total-closure-of-highway-99-in-tulare-county","9":"tag-77262","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-california-headlines","12":"tag-california-news","13":"tag-officials-say","14":"tag-timely"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}