The NTSB and California Highway Patrol have opened a safety investigation into this week's Tesla semi-truck crash on I-80 near Nyack.

The crash happened early Monday morning and closed both directions of I-80 for most of the day. 

The NTSB is sending a team of investigators from the Office of Highway Safety mainly to look into fire risks posed by lithium-ion batteries.

The team will work with the California Highway Patrol to “examine the wreckage and gather details about the events leading up to the collision and the subsequent fire response,” the agency said in a statement.

The battery caught fire, spewing toxic fumes and reaching a temperature of 1,000 degrees, forcing firefighters to wait for it to burn out, the Highway Patrol told the newspaper. The Tesla driver walked away from the crash and was taken to a hospital, and the freeway was temporarily closed.

The battery burned into the late afternoon while firefighters tried to cool it down for cleanup, and the freeway didn't reopen until 7:20 p.m., authorities said.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

ORIGINAL STORY:

An electric semi-truck fire near Nyack has shut down a portion of I-80. 

Cars heading west are being turned around at the Nevada state line while eastbound traffic being turned around at Applegate.

Traffic is being detoured SR 20.

Semi-trucks can use northbound U.S. 395 to westbound CA State Route 70 as an alternate route.

There's no immediate word on when the section of I-80 will reopen - it was previously estimated the roadway would reopen around 8 a.m. 

The California Highway Patrol says no one was hurt in the crash but because the batteries in the truck gave off toxic fumes they had to keep people a mile back from the crash until the fire died down.

They also said battery fires are very difficult to put out.

“It takes either some type of dry chemical or a very huge amount of water like I've heard as much as 40,000 gallons or something like that,” says Ofc. Jason Lyman, CHP Gold Run.