PLEASANTON, Calif. — A big rig carrying flammable chemicals slammed into the center divider of Highway 680 near Pleasanton late Sunday, jackknifing and triggering a traffic slowdown that lasted for nearly seven hours, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Battalion Chief Jack Neiman-Kimel said the accident required the deployment of a hazmat team because included among the truck’s load was “a couple drums of some hazardous material. He has a drum of lithium and a drum of Trimethylgallium.”
Both chemicals are used in the production process of semiconductors and electric batteries and can catch fire when exposed to air.
Neiman-Kimel said about 100 gallons of diesel fuel did leak out of the truck and also had to be cleaned up.

A fire that ignited accidentally as a chemist was testing diesel fuel did an estimated $75,000 damage early Monday afternoon in a laboratory on BNSF Railway property, authorities said. No one was hurt.

Shift Commander Mike Thompson, of the Topeka Fire Department, said firefighters were called at 12:21 p.m. to the scene, which Investigator Michael Martin identified as being in a ventilation hood within the BNSF Rail Yard Chemical Testing Lab at 100 N.E. Jefferson Trafficway, Building 8.

Thompson said a chemist had been testing fuel when the hood that pulled the exhaust out of the building failed, igniting the blaze. Smoke damage was reported throughout the building, he said.

Martin said fire suppression crews arrived to find heavy black smoke coming from the building’s roof vents.

“Fire crews initiated an interior attack of the fire and quickly extinguished the blaze,” he said. “A primary and secondary search of the lab revealed the occupants had self-evacuated prior to the arrival of the Topeka Fire Department.”

Martin said investigation revealed the fire originated in a fuel testing containment area.

“The fire was determined to be accidental in nature, and associated with the failure of the testing area ventilation system,” he said.

Martin said no hazardous or volatile chemicals posed any risk to the public as a result of the blaze.

PEKIN, Ill. —
Fire department personnel from Morton and Pekin and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency responded this morning to a spill of herbicide chemicals into a creek south of Morton that prompted road closings in the area.

A strong chemical odor was present about 1,000 feet from the area of Allentown Road between Baer Road and Fourth Street. Workers posted “Emergency Scene Ahead” signs on Baer Road between Morton and Tremont.

An agricultural spreader carrying about 1,200 gallons of herbicide chemicals tipped over into a creek, releasing an unknown amount of the herbicide, as well as oil and diesel fuel from the vehicle, into the water, according to a press release issued by Morton Fire Department Chief Joe Kelley.

A farm worker was injured in an explosion in Forest Grove on Tuesday.
Crews were called to the area of Willamina Avenue & Reuter Lane. at around 2:15 p.m., where they found the man with leg injuries.  He was being taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital for treatment.
The victim was a former volunteer firefighter and he was using a torch to cut apart a metal drum, authorities said.  The heat from the explosion was so intense, it melted some barn windows.
Investigators believe the metal drum contained diesel at one point. Though empty, it may have had enough fuel and vapors to create the explosion.
The blast also caused a small fire and burned some of the victim's clothing. Firefighters were able to quickly douse the flames.
The victim's name and condition have not been released.

NORWALK -- Every on-duty firefighter in Norwalk fought to prevent a Wednesday afternoon blaze in a building at LaJoie's Scrap and Recycling from igniting thousands of gallons of diesel fuel and exploding containers of accelerants.

Deputy Fire Chief Ed Prescott said the fire tore through the 60-foot-by-60-foot, two-story sheet metal building that houses the mid-20th century, 20-cylinder diesel locomotive engine that powers a car shredder. The building contained about 9,000 gallons of diesel fuel as well as containers of acetylene and oxygen, fire officials said.

"Our main concern was that a lot of acetylene tanks and oxygen tanks were compromised and were fueling the fire," he said. "Our guys worked really hard to contain it to where it was and to make sure there was external explosions."

SEATTLE -- Seattle Fire Department hazmat crews are cleaning up about 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel that spilled when a locomotive derailed near the Magnolia neighborhood early Thursday.

ONE lane of the Pacific Highway near Port Macquarie was closed for more than six hours following a two-truck accident this morning.
Police re-opened the south-bound lane shortly before 3pm.

Some 450 litres of diesel leaked onto the roadway and an embankment after the 8.30am crash near Houston Mitchell Drive.

Authorities first rushed to the scene after reports a tanker had overturned and split, threatening to leak chemicals into a nearby drainway at Lake Innes.

But the load was, in fact, raw sugar.

Cleanup began today on a spill of several hundred gallons of suspected diesel fuel into Battle Creek’s storm sewer system.

Brian Kelly, an on-scene coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency, estimated that several hundred gallons of the suspect diesel fuel was in the system, which empties into the Kalamazoo River.

Canadian based SWAT Consulting Inc., a subcontractor working on the Enbridge Co. oil pipeline spill, is being hired by the city and will have crews working today.

The spill was discovered Wednesday morning as the petroleum product emptied from a storm sewer pipe into a ditch at the end of Territorial Road near Riverside Drive. The stream created by the discharge empties into the Kalamazoo River.

LORAIN — The Lorain Fire Department found major diesel contamination at the Old Stove Works building, 817 West 13th, according Assistant Fire Chief Roy Cochran.

About noon yesterday the department was contacted by the Water Department after they noticed an odor. The fire department discovered a diesel spill, that they believe has contaminated the soil.

The Lorain County Emergency Management HazMat team and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency were contacted. The spill is believed to have been caused when an underground pipe rusted and broke, according to Cochran.

Milwaukee firefighters are responding to a diesel fuel spill that's leaking into the creek near the Mitchell International Airport.

Hazmat teams and other units from the Milwaukee Fire Department responded to the incident at S. 1st St. and W. Layton Ave. at 11:23 a.m. Monday after an off-duty firefighter called.

Sources said the fuel is believed to be leaking from the airport grounds. Fire chiefs are working with airport officials to determine exactly where the leak is coming from.

BERKELEY, Calif. (KGO) -- Stanley Hall on the UC Berkeley campus has reopened after it was the source of a massive diesel fuel spill that reached all the way to the Bay over the weekend.

The emergency was caused by some sort of malfunction with a tank feeding fuel to the emergency generator basement. The diesel then made it out of Stanley Hall due to the pumps in the basement that remove natural water that often collects. About 100 students were immediately evacuated from the building. Crews quickly started siphoning the fuel from the basement with large pumping trucks.

"The agencies are telling us that it was a very small fraction that made its way into the bay, unfortunately," said Mark Freiberg with the Office of Environmental Health and Safety.

SECAUCUS, NJ (CBSNewYork) – Several homes had to be evacuated early Tuesday morning after a diesel tanker truck overturned, spilling fuel in Secaucus.

The crash happened around midnight on Route 3. The driver of the truck said he was cut off and forced to swerve into the woods. That’s when the truck overturned and starting spilling hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel onto the road.

Hazmat crews were called to scene and worked furiously to keep the fuel contained and from spilling into a nearby stream. Police evacuated eight homes as a precaution, worried that the fuel may catch fire. They were allowed back in their homes a few hours later.

A CSX train derailed on a track in Bladensburg Tuesday afternoon, causing it to leak a significant quantity of fuel.

According to NBC Washington, a locomotive struck a derailer around 3 p.m. in an industrial park in the 2900 block of 52nd Ave.

The collision caused the engine to tilt on its side, spilling approximately 1,500 gallons of diesel in the process.

Fire and Hazmat crews responded to a 10:08 a.m. alarm Tuesday (Nov 1) to 999 Kalanianaole Avenue after receiving a report of leaking fuel at the Aloha Petroleum Hilo Harbor facility.
Crews found diesel fuel spilling from two overflow pipes onto the ground as a storage tank was being filled from a barge at Pier 3.
Approximately 14,700 gallons of fuel spilled onto the ground after an operator apparently miscalculated the tank’s capacity.
The spilled fuel was contained by low walls surrounding the area, authorities said.
No fire was ignited and no injuries were reported.

A big rig crash on Interstate 10 led to a nearly 10 hour closure along the major freeway Monday.

According to California Highway Patrol reports, the two 18-wheelers crashed around 2:30 a.m., in the westbound lanes at Eagle Mountain Road, which is in between Chiriaco Summit and Desert Center.

Both lanes were temporarily blocked, while approximately 30 gallons of corn oil were spilled onto the roadway and 30 gallons of diesel fuel on the center median, prompting a HazMat response. In addition, "25 feet of metal guard rail in the center median was damaged and protruding into the #1 westbound lane of I-10," CHP spokesman Officer Joe Zagorski said.

WALL — The police department said operator error caused a fuel spill that occurred on Oct. 7 at Muccio LLC, located at 5300 Asbury Road, leaking approximately 3,000 gallons of diesel.
...
Police say the cause of the incident appears to be operator error. An employee reported that at approximately 7:30 p.m. Oct, 6, he failed to release the trigger on the diesel fuel nozzle, which at the time appeared not to be working properly. Approximately 3,332.8 gallons of diesel fuel leaked overnight into a safety holding tank that surrounds the actual diesel fuel tank. The holding tank was not properly secured, therefore, fuel leaked from the holding tank onto the ground.

Broward Sheriff's Office deputies have arrested a man who rigged his minivan to steal 255 gallons of diesel gas from a local gas station.

Xoenis Cristo Banos, 28, is charged with grand theft after he allegedly stole the gas through a trap door he installed underneath his minivan.

When BSO Fire Rescue and an Oakland Park HAZMAT crew responded to the scene and inspected the vehicle, they found the false floorboard and several hoses powered by two car batteries that fed a huge tank inside the minivan, BSO spokeswoman Dani Moschella said.

The incident happened at about 1 p.m. at the CITGO located at 999 E. Commercial Blvd. in Oakland Park.

The station's owner said he was going over computer records and noticed diesel fuel was missing.

"It's like a bomb," the owner said, noting how dangerous Banos' minivan was with that much diesel inside.

The general manager of the Dalian Petrochemical Company of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), a leading on-shore oil producer, was removed from his post Tuesday following the branch's second fire in two months, a company source said Wednesday.

Jiang Fan, former general manager of Dalian Petrochemical Company in Liaoning Province's coastal city of Dalian, was replaced by Leng Shengjun, former general manager of Daqing Refining & Chemical Company of CNPC, according to its official website.

The Dalian branch has been the scene of two fires in the past two months. The latest incident occurred when a diesel oil tank caught fire on Monday. Fortunately, no one was injured or killed in the accident.

On July 16, a fire was triggered by a leak in a distillation device at the Dalian branch. No one was killed or injured as a result.

The CNPC also decided that the corporation would set up its own investigation team to assist with an on-going investigation conducted by the municipal work safety watchdog, according to its website.

SUMMITVILLE, Tenn. – Emergency crews from across Coffee County responded to a fire at the Tennessee Bio Energy plant in Summitville. For more than eight hours, flames engulfed the building. The two employees inside made it out alive along with two dogs. A cat is believed to have died in the fire. Since thousands of gallons of chemicals were inside, nearby residents were forced to evacuate.

A small spark is said to have morphed into uncontrollable flames at the bio diesel plant. Firefighters feared the unknown after an initial explosion. The plant makes the fuel from used vegetable oil. Thousands of gallons of agents like methanol and glycerin were inside.

"That's the fuel inside burning the diesel itself," Assistant Chief James Maxwell with the Summitville Volunteer Fire Department explained. "That's going to be hard to put out because you can't put it out with water."

Water was in short supply. With no hydrants in the area, firefighters had to take turns refilling their trucks. After burning for more than three hours, crews retreated, fearing another explosion.

By 9:00pm residents were allowed back in their home after firefighters got the flames under control. Environmental crews are on the scene to assess the damage.

SOUTHAMPTON, Va. (WAVY) - A Southampton HAZMAT spill on route 460 will take two or more hours to clean up.

Sgt. Michelle Anaya with the Virginia State Police said the accident happened in Southampton County on route 460 eastbound, just west of Ivor.

An empty tractor trailer ran off the right side of the road, over corrected, struck a vehicle and was hit head on by a tractor trailer that was full of slag.

Slag is a by-product made during the smelting of metallic ore.

The driver of the empty tractor trailer was taken to Sentara Norfolk General with major injuries.

The driver of the trailer carrying slag suffered minor injuries and was taken to Sentara Obici hospital.

About 400 gallons of diesel fuel, oil and engine debris were left on the roadway.

In Lebanon County, fire, police and hazmat crews worked to pull a truck out of a creek this afternoon.

Just before noon, a truck crashed into a car then rolled over the guard rail and into the Quittapahilla Creek. It was carrying air conditioning systems and boilers.  The crash happened at Belgrove and Syner Roads in North Annville Township.

Hazmat was called out to clean up the oil that spilled into the Quittapahilla Creek. Booms were also placed in the water.

"We did have some oil in the water and at first there was a report of a diesel spill at this point that all seems in tact," commented Belgrove Assistant Fire Chief Joan Sallada.

CALERA – About 350 gallons of diesel fuel spilled Sunday afternoon when a train derailed at a CSX substation, according to Calera Fire Capt. Luke Crim.

“The lead engine came up and the track gave way and the engine just laid over on its side,” Crim said of the incident, which happened about 2 p.m.

Vehicle traffic was not affected, nor were residents ever in danger, Crim said.

“It was on their (CSX) property, but it was a hazmat condition,” Crim said. “It was in an area where there weren’t any residents. We contained it to that one little area.”

The engine contained about 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel, Crim said.

CALGARY - Roughly 250 employees were removed from a downtown highrise Tuesday evening after 500 litres of diesel fuel was spilled on the building’s rooftop.

The spill happened just before 7 p.m. on top of the Esso commercial building in the 400 block of 2nd Street S.W., the Calgary fire department said.

Workers had replaced an old fuel tank with a new one for an emergency generator. As they were transferring the diesel from one to another, it spilled, said battalion chief Larry Fisher.

Shortly after crews arrived to investigate, fire officials called in the hazardous materials unit and ordered the building evacuated.

“It’s a combustible product and that was the safest and quickest thing to do,” said Fisher.

Hazmat crews removed roughly half of the diesel by pumping it into pails and transferring it into drums to keep it from leaking into the building or the sewer system.

MADISON, Wis. -- Multiple crews were working to contain a diesel spill in the town of Albion on Sunday.
The Madison hazmat team was called in to help clean up a diesel fuel spill found at 580 Albion Road, in the town of Albion.
Edgerton and Madison firefighers, along with the Dane County Emergency Mangement teams and the Department of Natural Resources were also on hand.
The leak was reported at 12:30 Sunday afternoon.
Authorities found fuel leaking from a pipe. The source of the fuel came from a truck stop that is located south of where the leak was found.
There is no word on how much fuel leaked or what caused the leak. However, authorities said there is no danger of fires or concerns to nearby wells.

Two fire companies and a hazardous materials truck were called in after reports of an oil spill on the parking lot of the Parsippany-Troy Hills Library's main branch Monday afternoon. Workers on the scene quickly assessed that the incident was nothing serious.

"This was minor. It appeared to be diesel [fuel]," said Jay Geiger, an Office of Emergency Management Hazmat deputy coordinator. "The oil didn't come from the cars in the area, so we don't know where it came from."

Geiger said the amount of oil spilled could be as much as 50 gallons, but he estimated that the actual amount was closer to between 5 and 10 gallons. 

Two people went to the hospital overnight following a head-on collision between two dump trucks in Knox County.

Rural-Metro says the accident happened just before 2:30 a.m. on Raccoon Valley Road near the Anderson County line.

Crews had to call in the heavy rescue squad in order to get one of the drivers out. He went to UT Medical Center via Lifestar.
An ambulance took the other driver to the hospital.

Authorities on the scene say both men did not have any life threatening injuries.

Right now Racoon Valley Road is closed in both directions as a result of the accident.

They hope to have the road back open by 7:00 a.m.

The trucks were owned by the same company, which was doing some over-night road repair work on Interstate 75 near Emory Road.

Hazmat was called in because close to 150 gallons of diesel fuel was spilled into a near-by creek.

SAN ANTONIO -- A big rig crashed into the San Antonio River near Interstate 10 and Probandt on Tuesday morning.


San Antonio fire officials said the driver lost control of the big rig when he tried to avoid a multi-vehicle crash and went down an embankment and into the river.
Special Operations Chief Jonathan Jones, with the San Antonio Fire Department, said 300 gallons of diesel fuel spilled into the river.
"The hazmat team responded and was able to contain the spill," said Jones. "We've already had the state out here. They've evaluated it."

Hazmat crews were dispatched to Wolf Laurel after the driver of a Fed-Ex truck flipped on I-26 and spilled over 100 gallons of diesel fuel along the roadway.

According to NC Highway State Trooper, Aubrey Hollar, Steven Glenn Lewis, 40, of Kingsport, TN was traveling westbound on Interstate 26 in a double tractor trailer Fed-Ex truck, when he lost control of his vehicle just after 6 a.m. on Tuesday, May 3 and flipped the truck over a guardrail.

“It is possible that he fell asleep, but the cause (of the accident) is still under investigation,” said Hollar.

Jeff Willis, Emergency Management director, said that the truck, which was carrying mixed hazardous materials, including various corrosives, also spilled over 100 gallons of diesel fuel on to the roadside, when the gas tank dislodged from the truck at the time of the incident.

The NC Hazardous Materials Regional Response Team responded to the accident just after 8 a.m. and determined that there was no immediate danger on the scene.

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Firefighters and a hazardous materials team worked to try to contain a fuel spill in the city Friday morning.
An underground fuel tank was reported to be leaking fuel at about 8:30 a.m. near the Carpet & Tile Mart and Sherwin-Williams stores in the 1200 block of Manheim Pike, said city fire Captain Ken Barton.
Grass was dead in the area and an unknown amount of fuel had gotten in a small stream of water, he said.
Absorbent material was put at the stream to try to capture some of the fuel.
Also on Friday, home heating oil leaked into the Cocalico Creek from a ruptured fuel tank.

Hazmat crews spent Saturday afternoon cleaning up a diesel fuel spill along the west bank of the Susquehanna River.

Brown sludge could be seen seeping from the bedrock for at least four miles along the shoreline, from the intersection of Front and Market streets in East Pennsboro Township, to the John Harris Bridge.

Cumberland County public information officer John Bruetsch said the spill is the result of a "fuel leak" from a piece of Norfolk Southern train equipment from tracks near 4th Street that occurred late Tuesday evening.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- An early morning incident on I-95 caused a semi-truck to leak fuel on the southbound lanes of the interstate.

The right southbound lane of I-95 at Old St. Augustine Road was blocked for nearly an hour as the Florida Highway Patrol and hazmat crews responded to the scene.

FHP officials tell us the 18-wheeler hit some debris in the southbound lanes, and that punctured the fuel tank, causing the leak.

MISSOULA - Missoula's Hazardous Materials (Haz-Mat) Response team aided in cleaning up a diesel spill in front of Big Sky Brewing on Trumpeter Way just after 1:00 p.m. Tuesday.

Swift Transportation Hazmat Department manager Dan Coberly said a mechanical failure of a fuel connection caused the leak. The driver was on his way to pick up a load at Big Sky Brewing.

"The driver could not have known that this was going to fail," Coberly said.

As Swift Transportation company policy dictates, Coberly said the driver removed his cotton mattress and placed under the spill to minimize spill spread. He then contacted Coberly at the Hazmat Department.

Greensboro, NC -- Greensboro Police responded to a crash involving a tractor trailer and a vehicle that was pulling a trailer just at 6:32 am Thursday.

Some lanes on I-40 West near MLK Drive and Patton Avenue were closed for several hours. A tractor trailer spilled diesel fuel and hazmat teams were called to clean it up.

Police say the truck was carrying about 100 gallons at the time of the crash. Parts of the concrete barriers were also knocked out.

Part of a big rig ended up hanging over the side of an overpass on I-5 North just north of Laguna, and the Cosumnes Fire Department says it leaked about 100 gallons of diesel fuel into Stonelake Creek.

They CFD deployed a containment boom around the spill.

The accident ruined the evening commute, and it took crews 4.5 hours to remove the big rig.

The California Highway Patrol says the driver may have been going too fast for the rainy conditions. He was taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- An accident involving a tractor trailer was blocking all lanes on I-610 East Loop Northbound at Manchester for hours.

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The accident happened early this morning between a minivan and a tractor trailer on I-610 East Loop northbound at Manchester. A HazMat crew was called to the scene after 200 gallons of diesel fuel spilled onto the highway.
All lanes were blocked between Highway 225 and Manchester Street for several hours. There were dozens of vehicles that were behind the accident that weren't able to get around the scene due to the fuel spill. The accident finally cleared around 6:15am.

DEL CITY - A wreck about 7 a.m. near Sunnylane and Reno has caused an oil leak.
There were no injuries, according to Del City fire Major Brandon Pursell.
Approximately 50 gallons of fuel were spilled on the road, and the intersection at Sunnylane and Reno was closed until around 2 p.m.

Tulare County and Visalia firefighters combined efforts to contain and clean up a diesel-fuel spill Saturday on Highway 99 about a mile north of the Caldwell Avenue exit just west of the Visalia city limits, firefighters reported.

A 500-gallon diesel-fuel tank towed by a pickup truck sprung a leak around noon Saturday while heading south on Hwy. 99, reported Charlie Norman, battalion chief and fire marshal for the Visalia Fire Department.

California Highway Patrol officers pulled the truck and diesel tank over, and both Tulare County firefighters and Visalia-based members of a hazardous-materials team responded, Norman reported.

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - HAZMAT teams were called in early Thursday morning after a falling piece of ice cut the fuel line in a FedEx truck.

Indiana State Police report the driver was going under a bridge at entrance ramp to Interstate 74 from Interstate 465 Northbound when the ice fell and struck the fuel line.

The HAZMAT crews arrived and blocked two lanes while they mopped up the leaking fuel. In all, 125 gallons of fuel spilled, but no one was injured.

 Traffic at Highway 86 and Austin Road was tied up until almost 6:00 am. There were no injuries reported, but the CHP says the semi spilled its fuel when it rolled. The Hazmat team was called to clean up the diesel fuel spill. Brawley fire was called to monitor the situation. The Highway Patrol says it took almost two hours to get a tow truck to the scene big enough to handle a semi and it’s trailers. Traffic was reduced to one lane at the Twin Bridges until 5:55 Thursday morning.

NORTH SPRINGFIELD — Police say someone deliberately spilled more than 1,200 gallons of diesel fuel from the pumps at Black River Produce Sunday morning, letting the fuel reach the nearby Black River through a storm drain.

Springfield Police Officer Anthony Leonard said Monday that the incident was under investigation, but he declined to say whether police already has a suspect.

Leonard said the two hoses from the diesel pump were left in such a way as to immediately raise questions about the incident, and Leonard said it all but eliminated any thought the incident was an accident.

“I think this was an intentional and malicious act by someone,” said Stephen Birge, co-owner of the firm. “It wasn’t an accident. Someone turned on the pumps and let them run.”

Birge said he had no idea of anyone who had a grudge against the company, saying it had been “months and months” since someone had lost their job there.

About 1,500 gallons of diesel fuel spilled Tuesday from a punctured tanker car in Salt Lake City.

Union Pacific Spokesman Aaron Hunt said that at about 9:50 a.m., a remote control engine derailed from the UP’s Warm Springs switching yard, near 800 North and 500 West. A fuel tanker was punctured and began spilling fuel.

No injuries had been reported. Hunt said no waterways were impacted, and responders removed fuel from the tank as well as some of the fuel that leaked.

Hunt said the spilled fuel was vacuumed up and contaminated soil removed, so no long-term problems were anticipated.