The Campbell Reporter

News

Car goes up in smoke off Highway 17

By Cathy Weselby

Highway 17 commuters saw a large pillar of smoke coming from Fry's Electronics on the morning of Feb. 15.

The smoke was billowing from a 1994 Plymouth Voyager van that was engulfed in flames in the retail store's parking lot.

Santa Clara County firefighters from the Union Avenue station arrived at the scene at 8:40 a.m. and noticed fuel leaking from the bottom of the van, said Santa Clara County fire investigator Dennis Johnson. The firefighters used foam to combat the gasoline-fueled flames, and the fire was extinguished within 20 minutes, he added.

The van was destroyed with an estimated $4,000 in property loss, Johnson said.

Tracy Sparks was driving down Highway 17 after dropping her two older sons at school when she noticed that the van was not running right. She exited onto Hamilton Avenue and the van lost power. Sparks was able to restart the ignition and pulled into the Fry's parking lot. Flames soon shot out of the hood.

Sparks quickly grabbed her 3-year-old son Leo out of the back seat, and two bystanders tried to put the fire out with an extinguisher.

Sparks says it was really smoky by then and the extinguishers failed to do the job. One of the bystanders grabbed the car seat and her purse out of the van before it was enveloped in smoke and flames.

"It was an eventful morning," Sparks said.