Fire destroyed a Jeep during the morning commute in East Hampton on Thursday.
A woman and small child were in the sport utility vehicle when the car started smoking, East Hampton Town Fire Chief Gerard Turza Jr. said. They pulled over near Route 114 and Stephen Hand's Path, and a passerby alerted them that it was in fact on fire, he said. They managed to escape without injury.
Firefighters, who responded at 6:50 a.m., quickly doused the flames. Traffic was backed up while firefighters worked to put out the fire. The Fire Department responded with an engine, a tanker, and two fire police units. The East Hampton Village Volunteer Ambulance Association responded as well. They were all back in service by 7:40 a.m.
Chief Turza turned the scene over to the East Hampton Town Fire Marshal's office for investigation into what caused the fire.
Firefighters were also out over the night. During a wind storm that brought down trees and tree limbs across the South Fork, they got a call for a structure fire at a house in Oyster Shores on Albertines Lane at about 10 p.m. While the chief said it was "a minor electrical event," getting to the house was difficult. He said North Main Street was flooded and impassable, and with Accabonac Road already closed due to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's work on the train trestle, "It made response quite challenging."
Correction: There was only a woman and a small child in the Jeep, not a man as earlier reported.