Varacchi’s Car Almost Caught On Fire

It was an unremarkable Saturday afternoon for me. I went out to lunch with a friend, took care of food shopping afterwards. I had settled back on the couch, waiting for my wife to come home and have dinner. Nothing out of the ordinary, save for the firetrucks I heard, but didn't really think twice about.

My wife gets home, comes in the door and says "did you not hear the sirens?" and I said "I did, why?" and she said "did you not look outside at the car next to yours burning?"

UM, CLEARLY NOT.

We ran outside, the air stunk, firefighters were still there, foam all over the ground, broken glass everywhere. I told them my car was the white one, they said it was safe to walk around and inspect for damage. Amazingly, my car was FINE. No heat damage, nothing was warped, no paint had melted, there wasn't even any soot. I was stunned. My wife was talking to a neighbor and they said that the flames were mostly shooting forward and to the passenger side, so the black Jeep took a bit more heat than my car did. I asked the firefighters if I should move my car, they said it was safe.

Lakewood Police rolled up while I was there, and I overheard the story: apparently the driver got into an accident that afternoon and the police said he could drive home. I assume he figured since it was late afternoon on a Saturday, he'd just wait until the next day to start calling garages to get it fixed up. He went inside, already stressed about getting into an accident, clueless as to what would happen next. By this point the officer and firefighters had drifted out of earshot, so I don't know exactly what sparked the fire. As much as it sucks to lose his car, he was lucky he wasn't IN the car when it lit up.

About an hour later I got a knock on the door from a neighbor. The wrecker had come to tow the car, but it was still smoking so they wanted to clear the spots around just to be safe, so I ended up having to move my car anyway.

I wish I had been able to get pictures of the fire, and I wish I had gotten a few more pictures of the aftermath - it's just that the old man who owned the car was standing outside, and I felt bad about gawking at his misfortune more than I already was. It's crazy how lucky I got and just how close I could have come to losing my car.