CASTERTON and Sandford Fire Brigade members were also called to a suspected chemical spill in McKinley Street, last Wednesday.

The south end of the street was a hive of activity when workers in the yard of a house, discovered a number of containers – some damaged and leaking an unknown substance – onto the ground.

“We received call just before lunch time to an unknown substance that was leaking in a domestic yard,” District 4 Commander, Craig Simpson said.

“They’re small plastic containers, but they don’t have any markings on them so it’s difficult to say just what be inside the containers, so we’ve got local appliances from Casterton and also Sandford attending and we’ve had support from Hamilton HazMat.

“There’s probably a dozen firefighters on scene and police are assisting with traffic control, so we can recover the containers for further investigation.”

Act Cdr Simpson said he believed the property had been unlived in for “some time” and the containers appeared to have been on-site for “a fair while”.

“Some of the containers are sun damaged, so that would indicate they’ve been there for a while, though they may have been disturbed by the work that happened earlier in the day,” he said.

“Those that are damaged will be kept separate from the intact containers … placed in specialised units (and) taken away by a private contractor who is authorised to dispose of them, correctly.”

Homes in the area were not evacuated while the removal took place, but neighbours were alerted and asked to take precautions.

“The EPA haven’t been called at this stage, because it is on private property and the amount of liquid involved doesn’t warrant their attendance,” Act Cdr Simpson said.

“And none of the neighbours were evacuated or moved on … we did consider the situation and we have spoken to the immediate neighbours, we’ve asked them to keep their doors and windows closed for the time being, but there’s no need to evacuate them as there’s not risk, at this stage, of explosion.”

Results of testing of the containers and their contents, are not yet available.