HURRICANE — Two men escaped a utility task vehicle just as it burst into flames near a Hurricane neighborhood Sunday afternoon.
Hurricane Valley Fire responded to the fire at 2:07 p.m. in a field near the 3700 West block of West Dixie Springs Drive north of Sand Hollow State Park.
Jensen Werner and his friend were returning home on a side-by-side style UTV from the sand dunes at the park at the time of the incident.
“We were about 100 feet from the house when the motor stopped running,” Werner said. “We could smell something the clutch burning or something wrong with the motor.”
“A couple seconds later,” he said, “we heard a spew and a flame coming from behind us. The first thing we thought to do was just to get out.”
They quickly unbuckled their seat belts and jumped out of the vehicle.
“By the time we were out of the side-by-side, the whole back end was already on fire,” Werner said, “and from there it pretty much just burned to the ground.”
Emergency services were called, and the pair attempted to put out the fire with a fire extinguisher, but it ran out faster than the flames spread.
A few surrounding bushes caught fire, Werner said, but firefighters arrived quickly and doused the fire before it spread any farther.
Nobody was hurt in the fire, but the UTV was a total loss.
The exact cause of the fire was unknown at the time this report was taken.
Emergency personnel from Hurricane City Police Department also responded to the fire.
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Holy Cow those things are death traps. How many people are going to burn to death before these things are fixed???
Sounds like insurance fraud probably behind on the payment