Last Updated: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 9:09 AM CDT
Driver escapes injury in car fire
By Giles Morris - Daily News Staff
A motorist on Highway 17 escaped injury Monday morning when his car caught on fire at a stoplight east of Rhinelander. Three trucks and eight firefighters from the Pelican Fire Department responded to an emergency dispatch call and extinguished the fire, but not before the vehicle had been destroyed.
“The car had pulled up to the intersection and stopped. It caught on fire and then we came and put it out. The car was completely destroyed,” said Pelican assistant fire chief Norm Peterson.
Jorge Aguilar, a cook at Friendship House restaurant, witnessed the fire and lent assistance to fire department personnel.
“I saw people looking out the window and I came to the back and saw the car on fire,” Aguilar said.
Aguilar had the presence of mind to take the restaurant’s fire extinguisher to the scene, where a Pelican firefighter used it to attack the flames.
“We saw the fireman using a small one and we had a good one in the restaurant and I just thought maybe it could help,” said Aguilar.
Aguilar also managed to film the fire with his handheld PDA. Footage showed the front half of the Volkswagen Jetta almost entirely engulfed in flames and the vehicle’s owner, a male, looking on. Firefighters controlled the blaze and re-directed traffic at the intersection of Highway 17 and Lincoln Street.
After the fire had been extinguished, the vehicle was towed to a junkyard owned by East Side Automotive and Towing.
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