Firefighters respond to car fire in Dart Bowl parking lot

Evelyn Griffin

FROM BACKFIRE TO CAR FIRE: The inside of Rice’s car was seriously burned. Along with a broken windshield and severely damaged dashboard, the seat coverings burned off. Photo by Evelyn Griffin.

Evelyn Griffin, guest reporter
December 14, 2018

Just after 1 p.m. on Monday, neighborhood resident Adam Rice was working on his car in the Dart Bowl parking lot. The car had backfired before, but when the hood started smoking, he knew he had to get out of the vehicle.

When he opened the hood to examine the cause of the smoke, flames erupted from underneath. Rice tried to extinguish them with a towel, but the fire continued to reignite. His fuel line melted and caught fire, spraying gas everywhere. He immediately closed the hood and called the fire department.

A bystander helped him put out most of the fire with an extinguisher, but unfortunately, it spread to the interior. Soon afterwards, the whole car went up in flames.

“It sucked.” was all Rice had to say about the event.

Eventually, the fire department arrived to put out the fire, but Rice, who was trying to fix his car for a long time, thinks that he will have to start back at square one.