(By Greg Rourke) – Car fires are never good. Gasoline in the tank, then all the rubber and plastic that can burn, you never know what can go wrong. These firefighters in Norway found out what else can go wrong.
First, we have a burning Mercedes. That’s bad. But here comes the fire department, that’s good. Typical car fire, fully engaged, we’ll just spray water on it and put it out. Nothing left to save. But then it gets much, much worse. It appears the driver exited stage left of the burning car without much thought to putting it Park, or grabbing the parking brake if it’s a manual trans. I can’t say I’d have done it either. Perhaps it was the force of the water spray, which doesn’t appear excessive, but the car starts moving. Brave firefighters try to stop it, to no avail. So now we have a rolling ball of potential death coasting down the steep mountain road with what looks like the entire town in it’s path. Really, very bad. Luckily, a well place guardrail stops the mess before it can cause any more harm. From the angle on the video it sure looks like the guardrail could have just guided the car on down the road causing who knows how much death and destruction, but fortunately this story has a happy ending. Except for the wrecker driver who had to remove the mess, and the hit the owners insurance will likely take.
A Mercedes Benz on fire? Oh.. too bad.
No great loss.