The smell of gasoline lingered along First Ave. in Mission Monday morning after a gas spill took place at the corner of Welton St. and First.
Witnesses on scene said at approximately 9:35 a.m., a pick-up truck with a barrel in the back turned at the corner of Welton, onto First and an unknown liquid poured out from the barrel and onto the road.
The incident took place across the street from the Mission Post Office.
The driver reportedly fled the scene, leaving a trail of gasoline along First Ave up to James St.
Firefighters were quickly on scene to begin cleaning up the spill.
Assistant fire chief Blaine Odenbach said the spill was relatively small.
“We don’t know whether it was gasoline or diesel at this time,” said Odenbach.
“Public works is there, putting some material down to soak it up. It wasn’t all that bad, a lot of it had already evaporated so it was mostly staining on the road.”
Traffic on First was limited to one lane only for a short period of time as the clean up took place.
Early accounts by witnesses said the Mission RCMP pursued the vehicle. However that now appears to be a separate police incident.
Odenbach didn’t think RCMP was involved considering the driver was long gone before the report of the spill even came in.
