We were driving down to Columbia, Missouri, yesterday, when a huge plume of black smoke alerted us that something was wrong:

A car was on fire; the fire truck had already arrived: We felt that the firemen were trying to assess the situation....was there a lot of petrol in the tank? Was it worth dousing the fire, or was the car past saving? The presence of another car next to the burning one was worrying, but we could not, obviously, stop and gawk at the scene...so on we went, wondering if the firemen would douse the other car, at least, before it, too, caught fire.

The burning car was well and truly alight (I got these photos from a quickly moving car):

How ironic that next to it is a sign that says “Icehouse”, and promises 24 oz. cans at less than a dollar each!

I looked in the local newspaper today, but there was no news about this, so I guess this is going to be an incident about which I will never know anything more…but I am still speculating about what happened…before, and after, we were briefly at the scene.