Wednesday, June 15, 2005

It Really IS Too Hot Here

Summer has yet to really set in, but apparently things are already beginning to "spontaneously" combust. Cars, for example. I left the house today to run errands and as I entered the highway I spotted a fire truck and police car on the opposite side of the road next to the charred remains of a small SUV-type vehicle. When I say "charred" I mean this car was burned black and crispy, the windows were blown out (or otherwise missing), and I could see (from across the highway, mind you) the visible skeleton of what had once been the driver's seat. YIKES! This is not something you see everyday (or at least I don't), and quite frankly was a little creepy. So imagine my surprise when I am driving home (along the same highway) four hours later and -- not four miles from the charred SUV -- LO! Another toasty car! This time it was a Monte Carlo or some such...one of those "Darth Vader" looking cars that guys drooled over or drag raced in high school (back in the day). My son was with me, and said "no, that's the same car we saw earlier" but I was sure the first car was an SUV and further down the road, but come on...TWO cars burned to a black, ash-y shell on the same road on the same day? And surely the fire department and/or police would have had the thing towed in four hours' time. So we continued down the road and, just as I had predicted, came upon a charred black spot of ground with a sprinkling of broken glass at just the place I thought we had seen the first car. Now I know that sometimes cars catch on fire, but generally there is a collision or some other catalyst involved. Both of these vehicles appeared to be fully intact frame-wise -- i.e., no body damage caused by impact with a stationary object or another vehicle. So why were they on the side of the road burned to a crisp? One is creepy. Two is just...well...weird. Is someone recalling cars for spontaneous combustion? Or is it just really too hot?

3 Comments:

Blogger Rachel said...

I know little to nothing about cars, but I do know that sometimes there are reasons for them to randomly burst into flames. Usually the reasons are preventable, but welcome to Oklahoma. For example, it might do this if you, I dunno, never put oil in the car. I'm sure there are other more common user errors, too. Sometimes it's a recall issue, though.

5:08 AM  
Blogger ET said...

Thanks to Rachel for sending the following link: http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/16/ford.vehicles/index.html?section=cnn_latest
(also accessible by clicking "cars" link in the post itself) discussing how Ford models ARE spontaneously bursting into flames...even the non-recalled vehicles. Apparently one ignited during the night and burned a family's house to the ground and killed their 6-month-old cat. BASTARDS.

1:53 PM  
Blogger Chyrene Pendleton said...

Wow! Good information.

9:14 PM  

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