On a cold night in January, we got a call for a car fire on one of the local highways. This call came in from a cellular phone and the location was originally given as being in my district. As we were responding we kept getting updates which placed the call farther and farther west.

Once our truck was on the highway we were committed to the call. As it turned out we drove past two other districts to find this call. We started from district 71 and finally found the car by the side of the highway in district 75.

As we pulled up we could see heavy smoke in the passenger compartment. We pulled a hose line and put our rookie on the nozzle. He advanced it forward and attacked the fire from the side of the car. The fire was knocked down quickly and we moved in to open the doors and get at the seat of the flames.

The fire was almost completely out except in the engine compartment. I reached into the drivers area to try to find the hood release. I pulled on the few of the wires that were hanging down but the release itself had been burned away. We moved around to the front of the car to see if we could get at the release wire through the grill. The grill came out easily but the release was too well hidden.

We got a pry bar and bent up one side of the hood. That let us get some water onto the engine fire but it's still wasn't enough. Seeing into the engine compartment allowed us to find the hood release cable we had been looking for. We pulled it and could even see it operate the catch but the hood did not release. We took the pry bar and eventually forced the hood opened so that we could completely extinguish the fire.

This car was an Alpha Romeo. I had never seen one of these on fire before. When everything was done we examined the hood latch mechanism. Most cars have two latches. One is released when you pull the handle in the drivers compartment. And the other is released by hand as you lift the hood. On this car the hood release cable controlled two latches hand when we pulled the cable it was opening one latch but actually closing the other. That's why the hood wouldn't open for us.

The other problem we encountered at this call was that this highway is made of cement and with the very cold temperature it caused the water to freeze almost immediately. We soon had an ice patch to contend with. That didn't bother my crew very long though. Because we were so far out of our district the platoon chief sent us home as soon as the fire was out. The trucks from the other districts had to stay and wait for the sander.

Overall that made for a pretty good call. Our rookie got to work the nozzle at his first real car fire and we didn't have to wait around in the cold to cleanup.

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FIRES These are stories about recent fires;

• House Fire
• Tanker Truck to a Garbage Bin Fire
• Tanker Trunk to a Hopper Fire
• Car Fire
• Warehouse Fire
• House Fire
• Apartment Fire
• House Fire

MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENTS These are stories about car and truck accidents;

• Single Car Rollover
• Head-on Crash
• Rush Hour Accident
• Single Car Flip
• Car vs. Garbage Truck
• Van Rollover
• Sport Utility Vehicle Rollover
• 500m from the Dealership
• Left Turn Mistake

RESCUES These are stories about rescues we have made;

• Man Trapped in a Trailer

HAZARDOUS MATERIALS These are stories about emergencies involving Hazardous Materials;

• No Calls

MEDICAL We go to a lot of medical calls, but it is not fair to the people involved for me to describe their medical problems here. I can tell you about one incident and how it effected me;

• Stress

OTHER Sometimes interesting things happen around the Firehall;

• Skunk in the Firehall