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I tried and failed to put out a car fire today


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Went to breakfast with a few local guys, was on my way home on a 4 lane divided highway. I see a vehicle going the opposite direction, flames are licking out from underneath. He on fire. I have a small extinguisher in my vehicle. I did a U turn down at the next intersection, drive back to the vehicle which is now off the road, driver out and away from vehicle. I stop, grab the extinguisher, get near the vehicle and try to hose it down where I see fire. Too far gone, ran out of retardant, I had to pull back and let it burn and wait for the local VFD.

I begin talking with the driver, his hair is all singed. When he stopped and tried getting out of the car, flames came out from underneath and his seat belt was still clipped, he had to get back in the seat, release the belt and then get flamed a second time. Turns out the guy just picked up the vehicle from a local repair shop that supposedly replaced the fuel lines and said the vehicle ran fine, but the battery was dead so the sent the owner out in it to drive it a little to charge it up. Guy is an attorney, I smell lawsuit. 

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Sounds similar to the incident I was at last year where a car was on fire.  No flames singing people, but the engine compartment had a lot of flames.

Someone going the opposite direction pulled over and used a small extinguisher to put out flames under the vehicle.  When I pulled up I saw some flames dripping, so I went around front of the car and took a peek through the gap between the hood and the headlight.  Engine compartment was filled with flames.  I went back to my car and backed up about 50 yards so emergency responders would have more room, and just in case it decided to do a hollywood explosion for whatever reason (yeah, they don't happen like that, but I was also slightly downhill of the car.  Police officer that showed up walked up to it with a large extinguisher, took a look, then walked back and set down the extinguisher and started blocking traffic.

This guy had just had work done on the car not long before that included fuel system work, so I'm hoping the shop he had work on it took care of him.

 

This picture is pulling up to the scene.  No real fire visible, but quite a bit of smoke.

1933378671_2017_0902_194303_542086.thumb.jpg.b83318e51d71ee4a708f5480fc56531c.jpg

 

This picture was about 5 minutes later going by the time stamp.

656423124_2017_0902_194902_544111.thumb.jpg.00b15916face87fa9070a39f7f2fa3bb.jpg

 

 

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This past August a Kia or Hyundai pulled up to the ATM machine at our local bank. While there the car hot hot and t+he owners got out to investigate. The car burst into flames and the building burned almost to the ground. The vehicle was just repaired two days prior. Yep, you guessed it, fuel line repairs. They finished the demolition a week or so ago. Big sign next to the now clean as a whistle cement slab, " Coming in Spring of 2019 a new bank." tom.

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It's amazing how quickly a carbecue can go from smoke to total anhilation. I was on a military transport bus (green school bus) in the eighties that caught fire. I remember seeing the driver notice the smoke and pulling over to the side of the road. By the time the bus stopped, flames we're licking out from under the interior engine cover. We bailed out the back doors and emergency exit windows as fast as we could, chucking rucksacks and weapons as we could.

We stood by and watched that thing burn to the ground before the local FD could get to us. We lost a number of M1A1's and an M60 on the bus. Along with my PT and all of my cold weather and MOP gear. I froze my ass off on that FTX.

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3 hours ago, MikeG36 said:

Dang. That driver is lucky he didn't get burned alive. I'm sure there'll be some litigation on this one.... 

Well the guy is not licensed to practice in PA, I referred him to a local guy I know. Gave him a heads up call.....jokingly told him I wanted a finders fee.

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