July 15, 2009 @ approx 0945

Trying to sleep in on a day off from my normal sucky job, when my pager goes off. "Vehicle fire 7-6 miles North of town." Getting out of bed trying to find and put on clothes without doing a faceplant is harder than you think when you are in a hurry. Get on my motorcycle and haul tail to the station. Oh, looks like I am the only one going on this one from our station. Get gear on and load up in the grass rig and out of the station I go. Fortunately for me no traffic to deal with. As I get within 2 miles I see the smoke rolling. On scene 2 county Sherrif units and an emergency management unit... None of them seem to be doing anything but watching the vehicle burn. I pull in and position the rig behind and upwind of the vehicle. The front of this car is engulfed in fire. String out the hose engage the foam unit and start fighting. Two more units arrive shortly after I start hosing down the car. I yell at one of them we are going to need to pry open the hood. The visible fire is pretty much out. The driver upon exiting somehow managed to lock the doors. OOOPS. There goes this front side windows so we can assess whether the fire extended into the passenger compartment. and attempt to get to the hood release. Which after being exposed to fire normally doesn't work, but we try anyway. So we pry open the hood of the car... this is more difficult than you may think. We continue cooling the engine compartment as the fire is out and we fire fighters happen to like it that way. We roll hoses and get ready to release the scene to the sherriffs on scene when the truth comes out. The driver had a blowout and very logically concluded he should drive on to the nearest town a mere 16 miles away. Please listen to me on this. If your vehicle is defective or has suddenly become so STOP AND PULL OVER then CALL someone to help... wreckers are alot cheaper than a new vehicle. Then we all head home, refill the water tanks and fuel tanks, and pull back into station. Then I put up my gear and head back home.

Short trip North.... check

Fought fire... check

Back home safe.... check

Money earned... $0