A significant fire left a car charred and foam strewn across the northbound lanes of the 605 Freeway in Cerritos on Thursday morning, but the people involved managed to avoid any serious injuries, authorities said.

The blaze was sparked when a van rear-ended a two-door Datsun on the northbound 605 near South Street around 9:50 a.m., according to the CHP. The Datsun slowed down in the leftmost lane, and the van behind it did not, causing the collision, CHP Officer Marcos Iniguez said.

The impact and the flames left the Datsun mangled and seriously charred, but its driver and the van’s driver only had minor injuries, according to Iniguez. Neither needed to be hospitalized, he said.

Crews had to shut down multiple lanes of the 605 Freeway while they doused the flames and cleaned up the mess afterward, leaving traffic backed up for miles.

Jeremiah Dobruck is executive editor of the Long Beach Post where he oversees all day-to-day newsroom operations. In his time working as a journalist in Long Beach, he’s won numerous awards for his investigative reporting and editing. Before coming to the Post in 2018, he wrote for publications including the Press-Telegram, Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times. Reach him at [email protected] or @jeremiahdobruck on Twitter.