Car Fire

[yesthattom]

On the day after Christmas my housemate’s truck caught on fire. Luckily it was parked outside the house. It was near enough to melt the vinyl siding.

quietchris and I were up in my room watching TV and suddenly we hear what sounded like someone beating on the garage door. Sort of a bam!bam!bam! sound you might hear if someone was locked out and was trying to get our attention. I remember thinking, “Why would C or M bang on the garage door instead of ring the doorbell?”. We looked out the window just in time to hear a big “whooosh” sound followed by a huge red ball of flame.

Suddenly my housemates are running around yelling things like “call 911”. Evidentially it was burning for long enough for a neighbor to have called it in because 911 answered with, “Car fire, yes, we know.” instead of even saying “hello”. I was too dumbstruck to say what I wanted, which was, “Yes, but you know the address?” I said “thank you” and hung up, realizing that if they were on the right block they’d see the house to go to.

We got dressed and went down stairs. Soon 4 cop cars arrived, one tried to use his tiny fire extinguisher to put out the fire. While it didn’t, it at least kept things as bay for a bit.

My housemate explained that his truck is a diesel and the engine block heater was plugged into the external outlet. Most likely it sparked and caught on fire. We stood outside with the cops (oddly, 4 of the 5 cops were female) and watched it burn. When the firetruck arrived my housemate explained the situation. (NB: Diesels break when they freeze, so they get plugged into heaters on cold nights.)

Well the firefighters were able to put out the fire. It took a long time but it did finally go out. Nobody was hurt. The truck is totaled. The vinyl siding is melted, and if you look closely you can see starburst-patterns on the door? That’s were the initial burst of flames threw burning shrapnel all over the place, which must have been the bam!bam!bam! that we heard when the whole thing started.

What a night!