A fire at a Florida airport destroyed more than 3,500 rental cars

CNN ^ | 04/05/2020 | Melissa Alonso

[BenLurkin]

A fire that spread through a grassy area of Southwest Florida International Airport has destroyed thousands of rental cars, fire department officials said.

The blaze began Friday, spanned 15 acres and originally involved only 20 cars in the grassy rental car overflow area at the airport in Fort Myers, fire department officials said.

But by the time it was extinguished, the flames had destroyed more than 3,500 rental cars, a Lee County Port Authority spokesperson told CNN affiliate WINK.

Melinda Avni, Mitigation Specialist for Florida Forestry Service of Caloosahatchee, said authorities were called to put out the fire around 5 p.m. Friday, when there were about 20 vehicles involved.

"By the time we had units on the scene, we had 100 cars (on fire). We lost count after the hundreds," she said.

[dp0622]

Boy that Hertz

[BenLurkin]

They try harder.

[dp0622]

lol

[adorno]

There were nobody renting them, so, why not collect on idle cars?

[Texas Eagle]

Whaaaat?

[nuconvert]

Melinda Avni, Mitigation Specialist for Florida Forestry Service of Caloosahatchee, said authorities were called to put out the fire around 5 p.m. Friday, when there were about 20 vehicles involved.

“By the time we had units on the scene, we had 100 cars (on fire). We lost count after the hundreds,” she said.”

hmm….sounds like a slow response.

[minnesota_bound]

Does anyone get their damage deposit back?

[Texas Eagle]

What were they fighting the fire with? Squirt guns?

[libertylover]

I would not have thought the airport at Ft. Meyers would have 3,500 rental cars. Hmmmmm.

[mabarker1]

Can anybody say Business way down and Insurance Claim ?

[Paladin2]

Shouldn’t be a problem, retail car sales are in the tank and plants shut down [Thank You Dr. “shut-it-down” Fauxcy].

It’s Gaia’s ca$h for clunkers, sorta.

[BenLurkin]

You’d be slow too if every time you called in you had to say Caloosahatchee.

[prophetic]

Sounds very suspicious.

[mabarker1]

Land costs less at smaller Airports.

[BenLurkin]

https://webmail.lerctr.org/~transit/healy/Uh_Yeah.mp3

[YouGoTexasGirl]

Everyone’s insurance will go up due to the stupidity.

Someone near was gassing a mower in their barn...and caused a fire. Lost zero turn, tractor, truck and more plus the whole barn. Just makes me mad cause we all pay for this through higher rates.

Pretty soon we’ll have some type of Obamacare for our homes and autos!!!

[Ezekiel]

Boy that Hertz

lol

We lost count after the hundreds," she said.

Should have learned how to Budget.

[redshawk]

Yeah blew their BUDGET for the year.

[Responsibility2nd]

And I suspect this airport had the right amount of tall grass and windy conditions in which to park unnecessary and unwanted cars with hot catalytic converter‘s on out in the field. But of course this was just an accident. Of course.