Pat Dillon photo
The blazing van on West Rock Avenue.
A state representative found a van engulfed in flames outside of her West Rock Avenue house in the early hours of Thursday morning.
State Rep. Pat Dillon saw the blazing vehicle lighting up the pre-dawn darkness outside of her Westville house when she and her husband awoke to the sound of a car honking.
“My husband turned over,” she said, looked out the window, and “he saw this whole inferno.” The blazing car was parked just outside of the steps leading up to her house on West Rock Avenue between Edgewood Avenue and Westwood Road.
After the fire had been put out.
Assistant Fire Chief Orlando Marcano said firefighters got the call about the blazing van at around 4:30 a.m. It took five minutes to put out the fire after firefighters responded, he said. No one was in the vehicle, and no one was hurt.
Dillon said this isn’t the first time a blazing van was pared in Westville. The same thing happened around the corner on Elmwood earlier this winter.
Liam Brennan, who lives on Elmwood, recalled returning home from a Board of Alders meeting late one night this winter to find his whole block out on the street. The fire had already been extinguished and the vehicle towed but, he said his wife told him at the time, the blazing car was terrifyingly bright and hot as it sat parked near the corner of Elmwood and Alden Avenue.
Marcano said that the city’s fire inspector is investigating the cause for the West Rock Avenue burning car. As of right now, he said, the department does not believe that the two blazing car incidents are related.