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The Garwood Volunteer Fire Department were busy fighting two separate truck fires on April Fool’s Day that were no joke, resulting in a total loss for both vehicles last Tuesday, April 1.
The first of the two truck fires took place in the morning with the fire department receiving a call around 8:23 a.m. about a big John Deere haul truck catching on fire at the Heidelberg Materials located on County Rd. 111 in Garwood.
Garwood VFD Fire Chief Todd Krenek said the cause of the fire was most likely fuel related, as the driver of the vehicle stated that the truck caught on fire suddenly after fire started to come out of the engine on both sides.
“Obviously that’s not electrical so that would be fuel related,” said Krenek. “Maybe they had some kind of fuel leak or something of that nature.”
The driver of the 2004 Nissan Titan pickup truck had an unlucky afternoon, as the truck was stuck in the mud and shortly after being freed, caught on fire.
The fire was completely contained to the truck and did not spread any further than the gravel surrounding the truck, ending in total loss. Firefighters used 3,071 gallons of water and 20 gallons of foam to put the blaze out.
Less than six hours after fighting the first fire, the Garwood VFD received another call about a 2004 Nissan Titan pickup truck catching fire around 1:49 p.m. on County Rd 116.
According to Krenek, the truck was stuck in the mud and the driver of the vehicle was “hammering” it back and forth until he finally got out but as soon as he did, the truck caught on fire.
“It was probably either transmission or oil related,” said Krenek. “Because it wasn’t the grass on fire, the vehicle caught on fire underneath, toward the front of the vehicle between the transmission and the engine compartment. On that vehicle we used 320 gallons of water and four gallons of foam to put it out.”
Despite the total loss for both vehicles, none of the drivers were injured, and there were no other losses besides the vehicles themselves. Krenek says the drivers of the vehicles were able to get their stuff out before they both burned up.
“It’s kind of strange,” said Krenek. “Both vehicles were about three miles apart, but they had nothing to do with each other.”
