3,500 Rental Cars Burn
Holy tamale! Did you catch this in the news?
A fire that spread through a grassy area of Southwest Florida International Airport has destroyed thousands of rental cars, fire department officials said.
The blaze began Friday, spanned 15 acres and originally involved only 20 cars in the grassy rental car overflow area at the airport in Fort Myers, fire department officials said.
Melinda Avni, Mitigation Specialist for Florida Forestry Service of Caloosahatchee, said authorities were called to put out the fire around 5 p.m. Friday, when there were about 20 vehicles involved.
"By the time we had units on the scene, we had 100 cars (on fire). We lost count after the hundreds," she said.
The fire was in an area where extra rental cars are parked and were not occupied. Witnesses saw and heard multiple small explosions, flames jumping high in the air and showers of sparks.
There were 3,516 cars destroyed or damaged by the fire and 3,850 remained undamaged. The cause of the fire is being investigated by the State Fire Marshal.
3,516!!!
Using a very low-ball average car value of $12,000, this fire destroyed $40,000,000+ worth of vehicles!
Look at a couple of pictures:
Even had to bring out the helicopters to drop liquid on the flames.
Wow!
Grace & Peace & Love to you all -
Matt
