Exploding tires in car fire give alarming wake up to local residents

St. George Firemen fight vehicle fire at 2405 S 2250 E | Photo by Tiffany Powers, St. George News

ST. GEORGE – Residents of South 2250 East in St. George awoke to loud booms and a vehicle engulfed in flames on their street around 4:30 a.m. today.

St. George Fire Department fight vehicle fire at 2405 S 2250 E | Photo by Tiffany Powers, St. George News

The Powers live across the street from Chris and Linda Hatch, whose car was in flames.

“It was the tires bursting that woke us up,” said Powers, “and then shortly – probably after the second tire burst, the fire trucks were here, so somebody had called them when it caught on fire.”

St. George Fire Department responded to the fire located at 2405 S 2250 E.

“We don’t know what started it, as of right now,” said Captain Coty Chadburn, “we got paged out from dispatch about 4:30 a.m. The vehicle was located on the street.”

No other property and no structures or persons were threatened or injured.

Chadburn said the owners most likely had nothing to do with it; “The owner said the car had been having engine problems so it hasn’t been driven in a few weeks.” Chadburn said a wire short could grow hot and eventually ignite a fire, but any conclusions at this point would be speculation.

The matter will be investigated over the next few days. Chadburn said that Washington City also had a vehicle fire this morning that had had gasoline poured on it.

“We couldn’t find any gas pours [on the St. George vehicle fire] but because of that [the vehicle fire in Washington City] and the time frame, we are going to investigate it further.”

[email protected]

Copyright 2011 St. George News. This material may not be published or rewritten without written consent.

 

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.