Seeing a car burn down is always worrying, since it could injure (or worse…) its occupants.
Thankfully, this wasn’t the case here. A Toyota RAV4 errupted in flames in the middle of Kenner, Louisiana for reasons that remain unclear.
The good news is that no one was hurt and firefighters arrived on the scene and handled their business. They, however, had a very close call. Here’s how it all unfolded according to an eyewitness who started filming the burning crossover even before authorities arrived.
“The vehicle was venting gasses and flaring up very quickly. After firefighters started to try to extinguish the blaze, the fuel tank exploded and engulfed two firefighters in flames causing one of them to lose his helmet and have to be hosed off for burns.”
“I was able to film until the fire was finally under control and then the police ordered everyone [to] evacuate the area.”
Browsing through our archive, we found that back in 2012, the U.S. government looked into an issue that would cause certain Toyota models to potentially become fire hazards due to a power window master switch. While the RAV4 was among the vehicles investigated, the probe included 2007 through 2009 models, whereas this one is a much newer model year.