Several roads reopened Monday morning after a crew works to clean up a fuel spill in Mission Valley.
A fuel tanker overturned and spilled flammable liquid at a Qualcomm Stadium lot on Sunday night, according to officials.
The incident happened around 7:30 p.m. when a truck driver was traveling east on Mission Village Drive and tried to turn left. The truck then flipped over on its side at the end of a ramp leading into the stadium.
There were two breaks in the tank that caused the leaking, according to San Diego Fire spokesperson Maurice Luque. The truck is carrying around 8,000 gallons of flammable fluid.
Roughly 6,000 gallons of flammable liquid leaked from the truck, according to officials. Crews have pumped about 2,500 gallons of spilled fuel from the ground and nearby storm drains. Once the truck was pushed upright, about 2,000 gallons remained inside.
About 3,300 gallons of fuel are unaccounted for, meaning they might have seeped into the pavement or surrounding areas.
The driver of the truck suffered moderate injuries from the accident and has been taken to a nearby hospital. He was driving to a tank farm near I-15 when the incident happened.
Officials said sand bags were requested to keep fuel from leaking into the stadium and to keep fluid spreading into other areas. Transients in the nearby riverbed were also warned of the spill since they tend to make small bonfires in the area, according to officials.
This is not the first time a fuel tanker truck has overturned in that same general area. In December 2005, a driver was pulling two fuel tankers, when one of the tankers tipped over and burst into flames and about 4,000 gallons of fuel burned for two hours.
Then in August 2007, another tanker truck carrying 8,300 of gasoline overturned closing Friars Road and the ramps to I-15. A relatively small amount of fuel spilled into a storm drain, but the rest was actually siphoned from the truck.
Photo Credit: Diana Guevara