Flaming Ram

[MMiles]

Almost lost my truck this past Saturday morning. My son and I were traveling South on I-35E in Dallas when we ran over a mattress that someone was kind enough to leave on the highway. Well, we thought we had cleared it but evidently not. A few miles down the road, a vehicle we passed tried to catch us while honking and flashing her lights. As I slowed to see what she was so excited about, I glanced in my mirror and saw flames fanning out from behind the right side dual rear wheel. Now I'm no HVAC, but I've done a fair amount of Bombing, but since afterburners were not one of my mods; I figured I'd better get off the highway. As I slowed, you could see more of the fire, as it wasn't being fanned back as much. I pulled up into a hotel parking lot, got my son out; and tried to remove the unwanted hitch-hiker. No luck, and the mattress is really starting to burn good now ( I didn't have an extinguisher, but you can bet I'll carry one now! ). I really thought I was going to have to "abandon ship" but figured I give it one more try. Finally managed to bust the thing loose by backing up a curb a time or two. Once the truck was off the barbeque, I emptied the hotel's lobby extinguisher and still couldn't put it out. About this time the Fire Dept showed up and put out the rest. All in all, we got away pretty much unscathed. Some burnt arm hair, a slightly melted mudflap, and blackened pickup bed & fender on the right side - which cleaned up pretty well. It could have been much, much worst. Anyhow, thought ya'll might enjoy the read. Watch out for those run-away mattresses!



Mark

 

[Bob Cochran]

Had one of the guys at work have that happen. He could not get it out from under truck, used fire extinguisher, 5 gallons of water on it from water jug, dirt and anything he found nothing put it out. He called Supervisor on cell phone and gave blow by blow description of truck burning to ground and it was while she called fire department. They finally put out and kept the suroundings from catching. We gave him a bag of marshmellows with great fan fare the next day!!!!



Glad you son and you are all right and min. damage to truck.

 

[ReggieRam]

Lucky MMiles

Hey MMiles-



You're actually luckier than you might know. I'm very glad you got out of it without much damage to your truck. Matresses are very nasty to put out, and burn like nobody's business. When we get those on fire at work, it typically takes a couple of hundred gallons of water to put them out because once the fire gets inside, there's no stopping it. Any extinguisher is going to be about useless if it gets going well. I actually saw a matress pretty much take out an 18-wheeler not too long ago. Glad you were able to get it out from under your truck.



Chris

 

[rich m]

in light of that... . never, never, never, no matter how technotempting, will i have another gas-powered pickup truck, of any size!