Del City firefighters extinguish auto blaze

According to officials, the firefighters arrived at the scene in the 3000 block of Vickie Drive to find three vehicles on fire with flame “impingement” outside the Tinker Del Village Apartments.

The responding units found all three automobiles fully engulfed and the fire threatening to spread to adjacent buildings.

“Firefighters made an aggressive stand and prevented the fire from entering into the buildings,” Brandon Pursell, department public information officer, said.

Pursell said investigators determined that someone associated with the vehicle that initially caught fire, a 2005 Dodge Ram 1500, was trying to remove some screws with a drill from the fuel tank to get fuel for another car.

“The person was not stealing gas; it was their vehicle or were associated with that vehicle. When they went to remove a second screw, either vapors or fuel ignited from a spark from the drill,” he said.

The two adjacent vehicles on either side of the Ram caught fire and the siding of two apartment buildings received damage. An estimated $24,000 in damage was reported for the incident.

There were no injuries, Pursell said.