The director of the Sock ‘n’ Buskin Theatre Company’s production of Peter Pan watched his car go up in flames in a Carleton parking lot Monday night.
The car, a silver Chrysler Neon, was engulfed in flames in parking lot P1, outside Southam Hall.
Zach Counsil, the driver of the vehicle, said he was seated inside the parked vehicle when smoke began to rise from beneath the hood and stream through the car’s air vents.
Keith Cressy, a fourth-year humanities student and the artistic director of Peter Pan, was in the vehicle with Counsil.
When Counsil and Cressy stepped outside and opened the hood, Counsil said, the engine immediately caught fire. Counsil said he “slammed the hood down,” and grabbed his things from the back seat before the entire vehicle was engulfed.
The interior was seared black, the windows destroyed and the driver’s seat burnt down to its blackened metal frame. Both front tires had popped, and the car was slumped forward on its scorched bumper.
A minivan in the adjacent parking spot had scorch marks on its driver’s-side door, and the side window was shattered.
Witness Lisa Muir, a Carleton graduate student in social work, said fire trucks took more than 10 minutes to arrive on the scene. Constables from the department of university safety doused the vehicle with hand-held fire extinguishers before the fire trucks arrived, Muir said.
Cressy said he called 911 at 5:22 p.m., and the fire trucks arrived after 5:38 p.m.
The car’s lights were flickering on the drive over, Counsil said.
“Through hell and high water,” Counsil remarked as he stared at the smoking shell of his vehicle, referring to the lengths he’ll go for the upcoming production of Peter Pan, which he directs.
Counsil and Cressy were on their way to a rehearsal for Peter Pan, which opens Thursday. Counsil has been with the Sock ‘n’ Buskin Theatre Company for four years.
According to one firefighter on the scene, the cause was likely an electrical fire.