Pine Ridge, SC 03/29/2021 (Paul Kirby) – A vehicle that witnesses say was mired in the mud on some powerlines near Pine Ridge caught fire and burned about mid-day Monday. The vehicle was fully involved in flames when the fire service arrived after several people called 911 to report the blaze.
According to witnesses, the vehicle appeared to have come off Shumpert Road and down the powerlines sometime Monday morning. The driver hit a very wet spot and the SUV became hopelessly stuck in the mud. They said that saw two people, one man and one woman, working to get the vehicle out of the mud, but they weren’t having any luck. “I told them they were on private property,” according to Pine Ridge resident Diana Nation who owns a portion of the property with her husband. “They were apologetic and said they were doing their best to get the car out. We’ve seen other people do this before, so we pretty much knew they were going to have to call for someone to eventually drag the car out.”
Nation said she had stepped away when she heard some explosions that caused her to return to the area where the SUV was again. “The car was fully engulfed, just raging, and the couple were no longer around,” she said. Nation called 911 and was told the fire department was already enroute.
Some tradesmen who had been working off Shumpert Road said they saw a man and woman running from the scene before the firefighters arrived. “From the description of the couple they gave, I’d say it was the two people that were trying to get the car out of the mud,” according to Nation. “It seems suspicious that the car burned so quickly, and the couple just took off once the fire started.”
The fire service requested a deputy from The Lexington County Sheriff’s Department respond to make a report on the fire. At this point, the fire service hasn’t said what caused the vehicle to catch fire and burn.
PHOTOS: Diana Nation
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