Also, I sympathize with his reaction to freeze, think then back off slowly..then think again and try to save his vehicle.
A couple months ago I was cooking in my BBQ. I had placed the meat in and closed the lid and went inside to grab the 2nd plate of meat and sauces. Apparently however, a large slab of fat from the meat fell off into the heat shield below it. Cutting a long story short the thing became an inferno in the 4 to 5 seconds I was away from it getting the rest of the stuff (yes, lesson learned!).
When I opened the door to the back patio what I saw was the lower part of my BBQ and a mass of flames and smoke covering the entire top portion (including lid).
moment.
Turned the gas off quickly and waited a sec to see if that made the flames stop..but it didnt. the fat inside was fueling the massive flames it was unbelievable.
Noticing the flames were almost touching the wall and top patio ceiling I grabbed the thing from the side tray and ..believe it or not... the idea was to toss the thing into the retention pond behind my house.
But then I stopped. DAMN IT i was hungry and ma'h meat was inside it. Cant toss that in the water. Ended up taking a metal broom and using the handle to open the lid. Flames went away after a minute.
The meat? Perfectly cooked and not scorched believe it or not. It had been in there for barely 2 minutes in that fire and it was cooked 'well done' without any charring. Took me a day to scrape the heat shield from all the carbonized fat though.
