What a waste of perfectly good booze!
A tractor-trailer carrying a tank of 6,000 gallons of Scotch whiskey overturned on a New Jersey road this week — and then the liquor caught fire, officials said.
“For us, it is unusual. We usually deal with gasoline tankers on the Turnpike, but to get a whisky tanker turning over in the middle of a residential neighborhood is uncommon,” said Fords Fire Company official Frank DellaPietro.
No one was injured, but the flaming booze did set a Cadillac ablaze before flowing into the gutter, he said.
There’s no difference between extinguishing Scotch and gasoline, DellaPietro said: “it’s a flammable liquid. Once you put foam on it” it’s out.
The Woodbridge Township officials did not know what brand of whiskey suddenly ended up on the rocks.
The truck tipped over while making a turn at the corner of King George and Egan avenues around 9am Tuesday.
“There’s a relief valve on top of the tank. When pressure builds up, it releases it. Some of the product came out of that hatch.
“When it flipped over, it made sparks on ground and that’s how it ignited, DellaPietro said.
The valve then closed, cutting off the flow of booze.
The driver, who works for a hauling company B-Line Trucking in Newark, was taken to Raritan Bay Medical Center, Perth Amboy Division as a precaution.
It took 10 minutes to extinguish the flaming alcohol — the fire house is down the street — and a total of eight hours to remove all of the vehicles.
The fire was never a major threat to the neighborhood, officials said.
With AP