Some residents at Canyon Creek Club, 900 West Bitner Road, had a brief scare, but no one was seriously injured Sunday when a Porsche caught fire in a driveway and crashed through a garage door, firefighters say.
A man was working on the car around 12:30 p.m. when electrical problems likely resulted in a fire under the dashboard, a Park City Fire District press release states.
According to Fire District spokeswoman Tricia Hurd, the fire quickly grew and overwhelmed the man trying to fight it with an extinguisher. The car was engulfed in flames upon firefighters’ arrival.
Heat under the hood caused a short in a wire, which prompted the starter motor in the Porsche to begin turning, Fire Battalion Chief Steve Zwirn said.
“I’ve seen it happen before,” Zwirn said, adding that a firefighter watched as the spinning starter resulted in the car’s manual transmission causing it to repeatedly lunge forward.
A fire sprinkler inside the garage and on a balcony upstairs helped extinguish the blaze, he said, adding that surrounding units suffered minor smoke and water damage.
The car, worth about $3,000, was totaled and the fire caused roughly $5,000 in total damage, Zwirn said, adding, “[the owner] told me that everything that got wet in his garage would dry out.”
Firefighters in two engines and an ambulance battled the blaze for roughly an hour. Two people were treated for smoke inhalation.