County responds to hazardous materials call

St. Johns County Fire Rescue Public Information Officer Jeremy Robshaw announced to Historic City News local public safety reporters that his agency had a successful outcome on a hazardous materials call this morning.

According to Robshaw, at approximately 5:30 a.m. this morning, a Special Operations team responded to an E-911 call reporting a gasoline spill at the Racetrack station located on SR-16.

Upon arrival, crews were informed that a man attempting to fill his boat with fuel, discovered, too late, that he had been filling the vessel’s hull — instead of the fuel tank.

An estimated 71 gallons of gasoline was accidently pumped into the vessel.

Special Operations team members responded and were able to assist in removing the fuel from the boat without incident.

In order to prevent possible ignition of the fuel, personnel assigned to the call boarded the vessel and disconnected all power sources. Wearing personal protective equipment, they constructed a system to safely remove the fuel.

Crews slowly tilted the vessel and drained the fuel into 5-gallon buckets which were transported to a large drum for containment and disposal.

The fuel was removed with limited spillage and the incident was contained.

There were no injuries reported during the course of this incident and, at the conclusion, the vessel was left in the care of the owner.

Photo credits: © 2011 Historic City News contributed photograph