Ethel McKelvey's trusty 24-year-old car betrayed her Monday morning after she parked it in the garage below her split-level Lawrence home.
The 1977 Oldsmobile Delta Royale caught fire, and the flames spread to a bedroom one floor above.
"It ran pretty well until then," McKelvey, 86, said later as she looked over her damaged home in the 800 block of Ohio. "My house is a real mess."
Firefighters from Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical responded to the fire shortly after 10 a.m.
A fire report later listed equipment malfunction in the car as the cause for the fire. The car was destroyed. Total damage including the car and the house was listed at $12,000.
McKelvey, who once operated a beauty salon in half of her house, said her car had made a loud pop and then smoke started pouring from the engine compartment. She said she tried to back the car out of the garage, but it wouldn't restart. She went upstairs and called 911.
By then the car was in flames, she said. McKelvey went outside and waited for the firefighters.
"The firefighters were wonderful," she said.
Several neighbors and her granddaughter, Janet Breithaupt, Lawrence, came over to see about her, McKelvey said.
"I didn't even have a coat on, but a neighbor brought this one over to me," she said, noting the thick, blue coat she was wearing later.
McKelvey said she wasn't sure what all she lost in the fire. Her clothes and furniture may have sustained considerable smoke damage if they weren't consumed by flames, she said.
A spokesman for the American Red Cross said McKelvey had turned down offers of assistance. McKelvey said she would be staying with Breithaupt until her own home is repaired.
No comments
Commenting is turned off for this story.