Disaster was avoided Thursday afternoon in Newtown when a local woman was able to pull away from gasoline pumps just before her SUV burst into flames.
“The store owner came running out and he was yelling ‘Move your car! Move your car!” said Ashley Pinegar, the driver of the 2004 Ford Expedition that caught fire yesterday around 3:30 p.m. at Hina Market.
Pinegar was able to pull away from the pumps and reach the road. That’s where the SUV went from smoking heavily to bursting into flames.
“I was taking the dog to the vet when I pulled in here to get some gas,” said Pinegar.
She said her daughter noticed a smell and then they saw smoke coming from under the hood. As the smoke began to intensify and Pinegar was wondering what to do, that’s when store owner Sid Patel came running out.
“If she hadn’t pulled away from the gas pumps, this whole place probably would have gone up,” said Patel. “This could have been a disaster.”
Asked how tall the flames got, Patel said, “Too big.”
McMinnville firefighters arrived on the scene in minutes and quickly extinguished the blaze which consumed the front end of the SUV. Pinegar said she had experienced no mechanical trouble prior to the fire.
Pinegar, her daughter and their dog were able to escape without injury.