Car burns on Highway 20 in Oak Harbor


July 27, 2012 · 3:35 PM

No one was injured July 19 after a car burned just off Highway 20 in south Oak Harbor.

At around 4:30 p.m. Coupeville resident Michael Watanabe was driving a Ford sedan eastbound on Swantown Road near Highway 20 when he noticed smoke coming out of the rear of his car, said Ray Merrill, chief of the Oak Harbor Fire Department.

By the time the driver had turned left onto Highway 20, smoke started billowing from the engine compartment. Watanabe pulled into a vacant lot between Swantown and Scenic Heights roads. He and a passenger exited the vehicle. Merrill didn’t have the passenger’s name.

By the time firefighters arrived, the engine and passenger compartment were ablaze. The chief said it took firefighters about five minutes to douse the blaze.

The Oak Harbor Fire Department is investigating the cause of the fire, but Merrill said it appears that the cause was an electrical failure in the vehicle’s fusebox.

Merrill said the vehicle was a total loss.

 

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