Rudi and I were a block from home on our bikes this afternoon, when we encountered a car abandoned in the middle of the busy intersection.<\/p>\n
It was on fire.<\/p>\n
People at the crosswalks all had their phones out and were filming this interesting new addition to their day. Cars were still boldly driving right past, which felt like a stupid choice. Some of them also had phoneccvbc recordingcc.<\/p>\n
911 had been called.<\/p>\n
But at that point it was still a manageable fire. And no one was doing anything about it but watching.<\/p>\n
So I threw down the kickstand on my bike and left it with Rudi while I hurried over to a local restaurant to demand a fire extinguisher. Another middle-aged woman came in right on my heels with the same request. <\/p>\n
Kudos to the restaurant worker who immediately knew where their front-of-house fire extinguisher was and handed it to us without missing a beat. Neither of us had used one before, but we were game to try.<\/p>\n
But when we came out, it was clear those extra 30 seconds had been too long. The car was engulfed. There was really no way for us to do anything at that point.<\/p>\n
The fire trucks showed up a minute later, and I assume they quickly got the situation under control, because I didn’t hear an explosion after we got back on our bikes and pedaled away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rudi and I were a block from home on our bikes this afternoon, when we encountered a car abandoned in the middle of the busy intersection. It was on fire. People at the crosswalks all had their phones out and were filming this interesting new addition to their day. Cars were still boldly driving right […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n