The heat was Frank-ly unbearable.
A semi-truck leaked a whopping 40,000 pounds of sticky Frank’s RedHot sauce onto an Ohio highway amid a brutal heatwave last week.
The truck carrying loads of the popular condiment began leaking while traveling north on Interstate 71 in Delaware County on Thursday, leaving a trail of the spicy sauce on the roadbed before its driver realized, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
The driver eventually pulled into a truck stop as fire crews followed the trail of the bright-red mystery fluid to find its source.
“Our crews were out on the highway trying to track it down and actually were able to follow the trail to the Pilot,” Berkshire, Sunbury, Trenton & Galena Fire Chief Chris Kovach told the outlet.
After learning that the substance was Frank’s RedHot sauce, fire crews were forced to call in the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, according to local reports.
Due to the hot sauce’s acidity, flushing it into waterways could pose environmental risks. Instead, crews had to use containment protocols and hazmat materials to stop it from spilling into drains.
Kovach told the outlet that the trucking company will have to arrange for a cleanup company to properly address the spill.
“A lot of people were shocked, and obviously they see a humorous side of it, but on the flip side of that is, there are some cars, a lot of vehicles that may have potentially been damaged,” Kovach said. “My understanding is this is very hard to clean off.”
One person even posted on a local Facebook page to say they had to spend $30 on car washes but still couldn’t pry the sticky sauce off.
The hot sauce blanketed the highway as an extreme heat wave blanketed much of Ohio in suffocating triple-digit temperatures.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol can issue a citation to the trucking company responsible for the leak, but they have not yet done so, Lt. Robert Curry told the outlet.
Drivers who suffered damage from the spill can seek compensation through their insurance, Curry said.
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