Driver's Cigarette Butt Lights Car, Grass On Fire
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) - A driver trying to toss a cigarette butt out her open window ended up burning her car down to wreckage and starting a grass fire that burned through two acres of land.
She was driving on westbound Interstate 494 in Eagan around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday when the cigarette butt blew back into her Subaru Forester and ignited the interior.
The driver pulled the car over and escaped with only a minor burn.
But the grass fire spread quickly in the high winds, and it took fire crews -- from Eagan, Bloomington and Mendota Heights -- about an hour to put out the blaze. Parts of Highway 13 were shutdown while they fought the fire.
"At no time should smokers discard their cigarette butts out of their vehicle windows," Eagan fire chief Mike Scott said in a statement, "but with the current high fire danger, it is even more important to properly dispose of smoking materials."
