Alum's car goes up in flames on Walnut

The car of a Penn alumnus suddenly caught fire yesterday afternoon in the middle of rush hour traffic on Walnut Street. No one was injured in the incident. As the driver was traveling down Walnut Street, smoke started billowing from the front of his car. "It was like spontaneous combustion," said the driver, who wished to remain anonymous. "It started smoking, and then flames shot up. [The car] just started burning." With the flames rising from the front hood, the car rolled to a stop -- right in the middle of Walnut Street, before the 40th Street intersection. "I made a beeline out of the car, grabbed some things from the car, grabbed my cell phone and called someone," the driver said. Police and members of the Philadelphia Fire Department arrived at the scene not long after. Some of the items he grabbed from the car included several cans of kerosene. The driver claimed, however, that all of the cans were empty and had nothing to do with the fire. They were not located anywhere near where the fire had started. University Police officials could not say definitively what caused the fire but said it was most likely caused by something in the vehicle's engine. The fire did not affect traffic much, since the police and fire department removed the vehicle from the scene within half an hour. While the driver had to pay to have his own car towed from the scene of the fire, he said he was not upset about his experience, particularly because no one was hurt. "A car is a thing -- it can be replaced," he said. "But life is precious... and that's the bottom line." The driver noted that he is in no rush to replace his car -- an older model Chevrolet -- and will use public transportation for the time being.

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