Rocky Mount, NC-- The Nash County Sheriff's Office and NC Highway Patrol say six thoroughbred horses are dead because of a cigarette tossed by a passing driver.
Investigators told WRAL-TV, the cigarette sparked a fire in a horse trailer traveling on Interstate 95 Friday night.
State Troopers said the truck was heading northbound on I-95 south of Rocky Mount, when the driver hauling the horses saw from an on board camera that smoke was coming from the horses' stalls.
The driver told Troopers he and a back-up driver, who was asleep when the fire started, tried to put out the fire, but it quickly got out of control.
One driver suffered burns while trying to save the horses.
Troopers and the sheriff's department both belief that a discarded cigarette from a passing vehicle, got into an open stall and set some hay on fire.
Traffic was backup for miles on I-95, after it was shutdown for firefighters and investigators.
Neither Highway Patrol nor the Sheriff's department released the name of the horses' owner. And, they didn't say where in New York the animals were being taken.
WRAL