SOCASTEE - Horry County Fire Rescue responded to a call about an overturned fuel tanker early Monday morning.
Hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel spilled out along Peachtree Road in Socastee.
A group of construction workers used bulldozers to flip it back upright, but then a fire started.
"Actually I was standing over here, but when I looked up and seen everybody running, I looked and seen the flames shoot out and I just stepped back there on the highway to get out of everybody that was running's way," said James Johnson, one member of the clean-up crew working to contain the spill.
The fire started when leaking fuel went into a pump box on the side of the tanker.
The fire truck on the scene was not equipped to put out the flames, so construction worker, Jay Shepherd stepped in - a small fire extinguisher in hand.
"It caught on fire, but I put it out,” said Shepherd.
It only took a matter of minutes to put out the fire, but that's far shorter than the days cleanup crews said it could take to clean up the entire spilled diesel.
"First we've got to get the top of it up and other than that what's contained in the dirt, and then we've got to dig down as far as it went down," said clean-up crewmember Kevin Smallwood.
With workers determined to pump and remove the diesel, town officials said there's no chance it could enter the intercoastal waterway.
Crews believe a quick response kept everyone safe from what could have been a disaster.
"It would have been bad enough to hurt someone, for sure,” said Smallwood. “There would have been a bad scene for all of us."
Witnesses and neighbors have Shepherd to thank, for containing flames that were flirting with the fuel spill.
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