Up to 2,500 gallons of used restaurant cooking oil spilled on Route 202 in Buxton on Tuesday night when the truck hauling it had an equipment malfunction.
“It was very slippery,” said Nathan Schools, chief of Buxton Fire and Rescue.
The situation was reported to Buxton police by a person who saw what was happening. The truck driver also realized oil was spilling and pulled into a gas station near the intersection of routes 112 and 202, where he put the truck in vacuum to stop the leak, Schools said.
Police closed a section of Route 202 while public works crews put sand over the slippery areas. The Maine Department of Environmental Protection responded to oversee the cleanup.
Schools said the truck was carrying between 2,000 and 2,500 gallons of used kitchen oil from restaurants, but he does not know exactly how much of that leaked onto the road. The frigid temperatures on Tuesday night helped the oil congeal quickly and limited how far it spread, he said.
The road was closed from about 8 to 11 a.m.
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