Roasted sweet potato truck turns into mobile fireball.

On the night of Match 12, the operators of the 119 emergency call center in Kumamoto City received a call about a car that was on fire. Then they received another call about the car, and then another. However, the multiple reports weren’t due to diligent residents all reporting the same blaze in a parking lot or on the side of the road. No, the calls that kept coming in were coming from different parts of the city, because the car was being driven while it was on fire.

And if you’re imagining a little smoke coming from the engine compartment, think again.

As shown in the video above, this was a full-on fireball barreling down the road, with the entire back section of the truck engulfed in roaring flames.

Now, you might be wondering where someone would be in such a rush to get to that they’d keep driving their vehicle even if it was on fire, and the answer, in this case, has a certain logic to it, as the driver was speeding to the nearest fire station in order to get the blaze put out.

▼ Cameras captured the burning truck traveling west along National Route 3, which runs alongside the Shirakawa River in downtown Kumamoto and passes within a few blocks of the city’s West Fire Station, at around 9:50 p.m.

As the truck drove, pieces of not only burning debris fell from the vehicle, but also flaming sweet potatoes.

That’s because this was, in fact, a yakiimo truck, a type of food truck equipped with a stove on the back for cooking sweet potatoes, or yakiimo, as they’re called in Japanese. Usually, yakiimo trucks operate similarly to ice creams trucks in the U.S., cruising slowly around residential or entertainment districts while playing a short jingle to attract customers. On this night, though, this yakiimo truck was driving as quickly as it could while its 70-something owner/driver leaned on the horn to alert other motorists and pedestrians to the inferno that needed to get by.

Amazingly, no injuries were reported, and the driver managed to reach the fire station, where firemen, having the shortest dispatch distance of their careers, were able to extinguish the flames, though not before the entire back section was burnt down to the frame, as seen in the video below.

It turns out that this is actually a fairly famous yakiimo truck among the local community, known for its distinctive collection of character figures attached to the roof of the cab and given the nickname Gekko Kamen, after a Japanese superhero TV show from the 1950s. The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but it seems fairly obvious that something went wrong with the setup for the truck’s wood-burning stove. The driver says that while he was out on his sweet potato-selling rounds, he noticed smoke coming from the back of his truck, and since he was in the city center already, felt the best thing to do was to drive to the fire station.

We’ll discuss the wisdom of that decision in a moment, but with no one having been hurt and no major damage except to the truck, online commenters couldn’t help but see the surreal humor in what happened.

“Guy wanted to deliver some REALLY freshly roasted sweet potatoes.”
“Normal day for firemen: ‘We have arrived at the fire!’ This day: ‘The fire has arrived!’”
“You really don’t expect the fire to come to you in that line of work.”
“The fire department must have been freaked out when the reports kept coming in closer and closer to the station.”
“I’m glad to see the truck’s [Anpanman] figures are safe.”
“I get that the driver felt like he had to do something, but was this the right choice?”

Regarding that last comment, following the incident the Kumamoto Fire Department was asked for opinion, and the spokesperson said that no, they do not advise people to continue driving their cars all the way to the fire department if they’re on fire. Not only is it unsafe for the driver to stay inside a burning vehicle, burning debris that fall off of the car can set off other fires, injure nearby pedestrians, and obstruct the road, making it harder for firefighters, paramedics, and other emergency services to dispatch to the scene. Instead, the fire department says the best thing to do is find a safe place to park the car, preferably an open area where the fire is unlikely to be in contact with any flammable objects or materials. Turn off the engine and turn on the hazard lights, then get out of the car and move as far away upwind of it as you can, and call the fire department to come and put out the flames.

With as common as yakiimo trucks are in Japan, it’s relatively rare to hear about one catching fire, and especially rare to have one burn down to its frame like this one did. One commenter pointed out most yakiimo trucks tend to be in Japan’s kei class of sub-compacts, but that the truck that caught fire in Kumamoto is considerably larger in size, which may have been a reason why the driver was unequipped/unable to put the fire out on his own.

Source: TBS News Dig, RKK, YouTube/FNNプライムオンライン, YouTube/熊本ニュース KAB ONLINE
Top image: Pakutaso
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