Devon's Car Burns

Devon's Car Burns
Updated with better video and photo.

Younger son and four of his friends were on their way to Forest Park for a little Sunday-clear-your-head-exercise and Devon, the driver, smells smoke, so he starts to put his window up. Now he notices one of the switches in the door is hot, glowing red hot, so he pulls over on the entrance ramp and everyone bails out. There is small stream of smoke coming from the door, not any more than you would get from a cigarette. Two minutes later the car (a 2005 Subaru) is fully engulfed in flames. Fire trucks came and doused it with water and then a tow truck came and took it to the impound lot. The kids walked up hill into downtown and had a drink. Nobody injured, fortunately.

The Remains

A couple of years ago my wife and I were driving through Montana and we passed a pickup truck sitting by the side of the road, totally engulfed in flames. My first and only thought was that it was an old truck, probably a real beater, much abused and not well cared for. Something like that wouldn't happen to a good car, but this deal with Devon's car makes me wonder. I mean 2005 isn't that old. Now back when I was in high school 40 years ago, a 13 year old car was a miracle. Cars just didn't last that long. But now my wife's car is a 2006 and mine is a 2008 and they show no signs of needing replacement. True, there are some small things that don't work quite right, but overall they work fine.

Now that I think about it I had some kind of little Mazda hatchback when I lived in Austin back around 1980. I sold it to a friend of mine and a month later is spontaneously combusted sitting outside his apartment one night. So every once in a long while this kind of thing just happens, regardless of whether you take good care of your car or not.

Bonus: Truck Fire in Portland four years ago.