In January 2021, my daughter's car burned in my driveway. This blog is about the fire itself; my observations and my experiences. Melissa endured some burns from the fire. She has healed well physically, but still has some deep emotional scars. So her story is her own, whether she chooses to tell it or not.
The fire was caused when she attempted to light a cigarette. Fumes from a butane lighter had escaped into the car and the lighter blew up in her face. The fire investigator later ruled it accidental. Flammable material inside the car began to burn, including her jacket. She and a friend were briefly trapped in the car. The doors would not unlock because the car was in reverse. Once they got out, Melissa said all she could think of was "Stop, drop and roll," from safety drills in her school years. She managed to get the jacket off. The only remaining part of the jacket that I could later find was a piece of the zipper. They both ran into the house for help. The first thing I saw was burns on their faces.
At first, I was not aware that the car was on fire. As I was calling 911 for help for their burns, I glanced out the window and saw a small fire in the front seat area. I had been requesting an ambulance, but then quickly added that the car was on fire. I impulsively felt like I needed to try to put the fire out. At that point, it seemed small enough and manageable with a fire extinguisher. The fire extinguisher that I usually kept in the kitchen was in our detached garage.
With my phone in one hand to continue talking to 911 as I ran outside in my socks through the snow, I grabbed my key with the other hand to open the side door of the garage. I quickly picked up the fire extinguisher and ran back outside. In less than a minute, the whole car was engulfed in flames. I was later told it was a "working fire" at that point, meaning it will double in size every minute.
I ran to the front of the car. I saw my neighbor across the street, looking like he wanted to do something but was helpless. With one hand still holding the phone while I talked to 911, I managed to pull the pin out of the fire extinguisher with the other hand. With the flames shooting high above me, I already knew it was pointless to bother with the extinguisher, but I still felt like I had to do something. I squeezed the handle and emptied the contents of the extinguisher onto the hood of the car, only because it was the part I was closest to. This tiny extinguisher was no match for what was in front of me.
I was hearing popping noises from within. It occurred to me I’d be too close to the car if it blew up, so I moved behind my own van for safety. The popping noises continued. Suddenly there was a very loud bang. The fire chief later told me that the popping noises were various components releasing pressure as the heat and flames burned through them. The loudest noise, he said, was the air bag compressor blowing up. We found the airbag in the street; it had been blown out the back window.
I gazed at the flames shooting towards the tree branches above. I wondered if the tree would catch on fire. I heard and saw fire trucks coming down the street and told 911 that they were arriving. They told me to let the firefighters take over, and the call was ended. With my phone now free, while standing behind my minivan for safety, I managed to take one photo of the inferno and a 15 second video. You can hear the car alarm go off in it. It didn’t last long, once the car alarm started burning.
While the first firefighters to arrive started spraying water on the flames, the fire chief arrived and walked in my direction. I pointed him to Melissa, who was crouching in severe pain on the floor of my kitchen. He took over for her until the ambulance arrived. In retrospect, I wish I had stayed by Melissa’s side during all this and let fate deal with the car; I knew the fire department was on the way. When you don’t prepare for emergency situations, you don’t think straight. When she had first come into the house screaming, I felt extremely helpless. Calling 911 was the easy part. Now what can I do for my daughter who is suddenly in the worst crisis of her life? I learned later that wet towels may have given her a tiny bit of relief until the ambulance crew arrived. After my first wife suffered a sudden cardiac arrest in front of me (she ultimately survived), I made it my mission to know what bystanders should do in a crisis. I felt like I failed Melissa by putting the car fire over her first aid.
I was still standing in the snowy driveway in my socks. I went inside to put on dry socks and shoes. At that point, there were over half a dozen people inside our tiny house, and Melissa was being taken care of. Her friend seemed to be OK with less severe burns, so I decided to go back outside to get out of the way.
I watched as the firefighters finished up and I got my first closeup look at the burned out shell of a car. I looked up and down the street and saw that our section of the street had roadblocks at both ends. Melissa was soon brought out to the ambulance and I called her mom to tell her what happened.
Soon the fire investigator arrived and started poking around. The ambulance left shortly thereafter to take Melissa to Strong Memorial Hospital, where she received fantastic burn care. Amazingly, we found the purses of both girls in the snow. They must have dropped them while escaping from the car. While the outsides were charred, the contents were mostly intact. As I said earlier, the cause of the fire was ruled accidental.
The car was towed away and the town of Greece sent a salt truck to melt the ice that was now in the street. Our driveway was charred in spots. There were small piles of melted plastic all over the place. Glass was everywhere. Every day for the next couple weeks, I would walk around and pick up pieces of debris that I found in the snow. That's how I found the piece of zipper that was left of her jacket.
We never successfully cleaned all the glass out of the driveway. It was old and cracked. When the government handed out Covid checks to stimulate the economy, we spent it on a new driveway. I stood watching and silently applauded as a backhoe ripped out and dumped the old driveway into a dump truck. The last of that awful evening was finally removed from our yard.
