PEA RIDGE — She had just left her house in Pea Ridge on her way to work at Subway in Bentonville when she noticed smoke billowing from beneath the car dash.
Holly Caufman, 19, Pea Ridge, said she had just left her house for work Monday, June 6, and noticed the light on indicating low fuel and planned to buy gas before going to work. When she saw the smoke, she pulled off on the entrance to Mariano Road off Arkansas Highway 72, pulled out the keys and got out of the car.
Two passersby, Alex Martinez and Scott Thomley, were each eastbound when they saw the car on fire and stopped to help.
“I grabbed a fire extinguisher and popped the hood, but it was too far gone by then,” Thomley said, explaining that he drives a Jeep, likes to offroad and always carries a fire extinguisher.
“She was close,” Martinez said, adding that the two men told Caufman to get further away from the car.
Explosions resounded as the tires popped, magnesium exploded and the windows burst.
Caufman waited tearfully away from the burning car for Pea Ridge firefighters to extinguish the blaze in her 1995 Buick LaSabre.
Firefighters from the Pea Ridge Volunteer Fire Department arrived on the scene with a 500-gallon brush truck. When they were dispatched to the fire, they were on the scene of another fire - a bale of hay in a hay baler on Hazelton Road.
“It hasn’t hit the gas yet,” yelled police officer John Langham to firefighters.
Firefighter Tony Johnson explained later that an empty gas tank is actually more dangerous than a full tank because gas vapors are flammable.
A Benton County Sheriff’s deputy investigated the incident.
News, Pages 1 on 06/13/2012