On Fire

On Monday, while driving back from a project, our HMMWV (Hummer) caught fire. It was pretty awesome.

EA 2-2 was driving, which was also awesome.

Here's the story:

There were 3 people riding in the back of the truck and 2 up in the cab when suddenly we pulled over and the guy riding shotgun jumped out and started smelling bags, camelbacks, whatever he could to try and determine the source of a burning smell. As he was smelling around 2-2 pointed out that smoke was coming from underneath the floor of the cab. We all looked down and saw it was coming up through the bed of the Humvee also.
Upon closer inspection we could also see small flames through the drain holes and various other gaps in the floor of the truck. I immediately started throwing tools out of the back of the vehicle (they were checked out in my name and damn if I'll pay for 2 burnt up shovels) and told the a-driver to grab the fire extinguisher.
He passed it up to me while everyone else in back of the truck climbed out, and as I was blasting powder into the floor trying to figure out where the fire was coming from a-driver started shouting "The gas tank's on fire! The gas tank's on fire!"

I had no idea I could jump out of the back of a Humvee so fast.

Once I hit the ground I confirmed that, yes, the fuel tank was the source of the burning, so everyone backed way up and I called UMCC to have him call the fire department and tell them our vehicle was on fire right next to the base fuel depot.

This was the second fire the Seabees have been behind so far this deployment and I must say, the department responded much faster when they heard the fire was by nearly 30,000 gallons of fuel.

In the end nobody was hurt, no equipment except for the HMMWV was damaged and I ended up with a great deployment story.

Plus 2-2 was driving and there is no way that the fire could be my fault.