The last time we drove the car was last night, about 11:15p.

At 10 this morning a neighbor came banging on the door saying there was smoke coming from my car. I went out there, and it looked like it was overheating.

I opened the back passenger door and saw that the inside was in flames (small flames at that time) and black smoke came billowing out. I freaked and slammed the car door shut. Somehow, during this, the inside of the door touched my arm and I got a nasty burn there. As soon as I shut the car door, there was a loud "whoosh" and in a matter of about 2 seconds the entire car was completely engulfed. My opening the door caused the flareup.

The investigators said it probably sparked last night after we drove it, and smoldered for the next 11 hours.

After I opened the door and the fire flared, the whole car was on fire and flames were going up about 6 feet above the top of the car. Right after that the trees caught fire, and flames were HIGH in the air. We had two 40' evergreens there and they were completely on fire. The heat and the sound was amazing.

The fire department finally got there, it seemed to take forever although everyone else said they were there very fast. I was in shock, catatonic almost. I was on the phone to 911 after the trees went up and then I heard cops everywhere evacuating the neighborhood. Mark was yelling that I was in the house and came and we ran out and up the street.

There were 5 fire trucks, too many cop cars to count, and 2 ambulances. They evacuated almost every house on the street, and gathered everyone up the street about 10 houses. I was sitting on someone's lawn with my head on my knees, shaking and freaking out. I kept hearing these loud "BOOM" noises. The fireman thought the car was going to blow. My car in front of the Elantra caught fire, and the two other cars on the side of my car are severly damaged. (The neighbors)

The boom noises were the windows bursting and the tires blowing up. It sounded like shotgun blasts.

Here's one more picture, of the whole inside from the back. And yes, that is Daniel's bike...which just happened to be in the back.







It's been a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day.