A hot ride
Ralph Bartholdt Staff Writer | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 7 years, 8 months AGO
LISA JAMES/Press A firefighter gets ready to knock down a fire engulfing a 1994 Honda Passport burning Wednesday in the median of Interstate 90 near the Spokane Street exit in Post Falls. The occupants were able to escape before the vehicle was engulfed.
LISA JAMES/Press A 1994 Honda Passport burns in the median along Highway 90 near Exit 2 in Post Falls before firefighters show up on Wednesday morning. The car caught fire while the drivers were traveling west back to Sandwood, WA. They were able to escape before the car was engulfed.
LISA JAMES/Press Traffic slows as a 1994 Honda Passport burns in the median along Highway 90 near Exit 2 in Post Falls on Wednesday morning. The car caught fire while the drivers were traveling west back to Sandwood, WA. They were able to escape before the car was engulfed.
LISA JAMES/Press Firefighters put out a 1994 Honda Passport that caught fire along Highway 90 in Post Falls Wednesday morning. The car was fully engulfed when they arrived but contained within two minutes.
POST FALLS — Not much remained of a Honda hatchback after it burned in the median of Interstate 90 Wednesday, leaving two traveling teens without transportation.
No one was injured, authorities said, and the only identifiable thing left in the burned-out car was a six-pack of Coors Light that simmered on the back seat.
Kootenai County Fire and Rescue responded around noon to a report of a car fire on the interstate near the Spokane Street exit, said Emergency Medical Services Chief Steve Isaacson. The engine crew was on scene within minutes but by the time they arrived, the westbound Honda Passport was engulfed in flames.
“We didn’t come from very far away,” Isaacson said. “It wasn’t even a mile, and by the time they got there, it was ripping.”
Lane Gellerson and Nicholas Bickford, both 18, were traveling home to Seattle after visiting Idaho on a job search. They were driving west when, according to Bickford, passing cars started honking at them.
“I looked in the rear-view mirror and the whole back of the car was on fire,” Bickford said.
He veered onto the median and both men began pulling their belongings from the flames.
Sleeping bags, a cooler, a portable welder, tools.
“We were trying to rip everything out as fast as we could,” Bickford said.
They reached in through the flames, pulling and dragging, then returning for more, until the fire got too hot and the flames began to grow.
“The tires started popping, then the whole thing started to blow up,” he said. “The gas tank blew up and the engine blew up.”
What started as a localized fire near the hatchback became an inferno that spiraled a tube of black smoke into the sky.
Gellerson suffered burns on his hands, but refused to be transported to the hospital.
Firefighters quenched the flames, as state police temporarily closed three lanes of traffic. No citations were issued, according to Idaho State Police.
Bickford said the car had been leaking gas, and they had the leak repaired in Mountain Home before heading to Coeur d’Alene.
“It wasn’t a leak. It was more like pouring out,” he said. “Obviously they didn’t do a very good job (fixing it).”
After suffering the inferno, the once-green car was a charcoal gray.
Bickford said he didn’t know where the beer bottles came from.
“They were empty. The tops were blown off. There was nothing left,” he said.
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