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Hello, I'm the Groom. Yes, my 1999 Toyota Camry burned on Sunday afternoon, April 13th, around 3:50pm.

I had a "bachelors" camping trip last weekend with my brothers Phil & Luke, plus my brother-in-law John Frugé, and 2 other Groomsmen. We went to a few state parks West of Austin. Anyway, returning to Jacksonville with me in my car was Phil, Luke, and my buddy Sean. I noticed the engine seemed to be running only a little loud, but I waited about 20 miles to check it further because my brothers were asleep in the backseat and I did not want to wake them. I figured the car might be a little low on oil, since it had been 5000 miles since my last oil change, but I did not think I was damaging the car. We stopped when we got to I-35 at Georgetown, TX. Sean checked the oil and found it to be 2 quarts low. So we added oil and refueled. Next Phil became the driver and I got in the back seat with Sean. Luke was in passenger seat.

About 21 miles later the car made one pop sound, and then grinding sounds. Phil complained the car stopped running and we saw smoke coming from the engine. There was a Jersey wall near the freeway which made the shoulder area very narrow. We were coasting toward the end of the wall so we could pull further off the freeway, but before we could leave the narrow shoulder, smoke entered the cabin and we had to bail out quickly. After I got out I observed Phil trying to get out of the drivers seat without getting hit by a car. Soon he got out and we ran away from the car. Flames were coming from under the hood towards the windshield. Very quickly a truck driver stopped and gave us a fire extinguisher. Another driver on the access road gave me an extinguisher, and as I aimed it at the car from behind the Jersey wall, I saw my right-front tire was in flames. So I realized then we had no means to save the car.

Three of four cellphones burned in the car. I used Sean's cellphone to call 911 and then I called Tammy and my mother. I'm not sure how fast a car might explode in this situation, or if a modern car will even explode at all except in extreme cases. Anyway, we had time to save our camping gear from the trunk, but we were too cautious to approach the car. If someone else's car was burning I might have thought about my gear, but in this case I didn't even think about our stuff in the trunk one bit, until it was too late. I was thinking about my car, and about yelling for Luke to not be so close to the fire as it burned.  Plus the car burned so fast.

The firemen eventually arrived and it took them about 6-7 min to put out the fire. They seemed to not be worried about an explosion, so it made me think we had been too cautious earlier. The traffic on I-35 was completely stopped for about 30 min. We did an extensive search of the damaged car looking for surviving items, breaking through the console and seats with a hammer. I recovered my burned camera with a swollen memory stick. Technically some day I may be able to recover our camping trip pictures.  (The pictures here are from Sean's camera)

We found a large hole in the side of the engine block, where presumably a rod broke and came out of the engine. (You can see this in the pictures)

So finally, the wrecker arrived, the firemen gave us a ride to the next exit, and we waited for Tammy to come pick us up.  She drove from the Dallas area where she was visiting a friend. Thankfully we were not injured. Too bad we could not save our stuff, but it looks like either way I was going to be without a car once the engine busted.

Tammy and I are very short on time due to wedding plans, so it was encouraging to find a car to purchase quickly on Monday evening. We only slightly overpaid for a replacement 2002 Toyota Camry at the Toyota dealer in Tyler. And of course we have car payments again now. =)