This is getting to be a habit

[rachelmanija]

This weekend while driving in Pasadena I turned the corner and saw a plume of smoke. An SUV in a parking lot had flames erupting from the hood. No one was visible anywhere nearby

Comments

[nekonexus]

My first aid training is sadly lapsed (I really should remedy this), and my emergency preparedness training has mostly come from reading Jim McDonald's "Trauma and You" posts on Making Light.

I also lack fire extinguisher. >.>

However! I have seen, usually from a distance, several burning or (spectacularly) burnt out vehicles in and around the GTA. My count is kind of fuzzy. (I did not actually see the garbage truck collide with the paint truck -- the combination of which melted the asphalt off the highway -- but it was a rather freak occurrence... of the kind that seems to happen frighteningly often on the 400-series highways here in Ontario. )

[genarti]

Likewise, which is why I put myself as just an average passerby. I'm not sure a many-years-lapsed CPR certification and some Making Light (etc) posts really count. *sheepish*

This is one of those things I really should remedy at some point. It seems a good and useful thing to be more current in.

Edit: oh, and no cars on fire here. The one time I was in a wreck I did get out of the car, but it wasn't because of any fear of fire. (The car was upside-down and ended up totaled, but I was totally fine. Just a little bit dazed/shocky from the adrenaline and the surreality of going from "heading out of my driveway, straight down the same road as always" to "EVADING CARS ACK I'M ROLLING" in the cornfield. Fire didn't really occur to me as a worry at the time. There was no smell of smoke or gasoline, either, so no cause to think it'd be a danger even if I'd been thinking that analytically.)

[rachelmanija]

Oh, how awful. (If it was the last case, the first aider should have reassured you!)

The movie thing is a problem. Either people assume it's true and that crashed cars commonly explode, or they think that it's completely untrue and that car fires are not all that dangerous-- and neither is correct.

[calligrafiti]

When I lived out in the NC countryside, I had some neighbors who were mean to their dogs. There was nothing I could get them arrested or fined for on animal cruelty grounds (I checked), but I definitely thought they sucked. They also liked old muscle cars. One day I was walking my roommate's dog along the road and saw them driving an old corvette towards their house. Smoke started pouring out from under the front hood, and then flames. They pulled over to the side and got out, watching their car burn with looks of deep sorrow on their faces. For a moment I thought I'd finally mastered setting things on fire with my mind, but as it hasn't happened since I guess it was a fluke.

[rachelmanija]

BWA-HA-HA!

[movingfinger]

My most notable burning vehicle experience happened when I was a kid: the family International Harvester truck (a proto-SUV) spontaneously caught fire in the parking lot of a mall at Christmas time. Nothing like coming out and finding that the reason for all the excitement is you!

[telophase]

I've seen two cars on fire and thought mine was on fire at one point. Mine was when some gauge or other in mine cracked, causing something else to break when it got overheated, and steam to pour forth from my vehicle when I was trapped in rush-hour traffic. Terrified, I managed to pull over off the road a few minutes later and threw myself and everything I needed (purse, phone, iPod, books) out of the car and called roadside assistance. Eventually it stopped, and I realized it probably wasn't going to catch on fire (the difference between steam and smoke not exactly being apparent when you're terrified and trapped in traffic), and got back into the car to get out of the sun while waiting for the tow truck

[telophase]

I was also in Denver when a car there was struck by lighting during 5-o'clock traffic and set on fire. Did not see it, alas, as it was not on my commute home, but I remember hearing it on the news.

[ckd]

I've been in a similar situation to your "thought it was on fire"; we were visiting my grandmother, and her car suddenly started spewing what looked like smoke but was actually steam while we were stopped at a light.

My mother practically threw my brother and me out of the car.

[telophase]

Yeah, It wasn't until later that I realized if it was smoke, I would have been able to smell it and it probably would have been much darker. But better safe than sorry, at any rate.