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Subscribe to RSSA woman fleeing Colorado's most devastating wildfire accidentally started a massive blaze in Idaho, where flames consumed all her possessions except the contents of her purse, NBC station KTVB of Boise reported.
Krista McCann, 19, was en route to her father’s Oregon home after evacuating for the massive Waldo Canyon fire raging near her home in Colorado Springs.
She had loaded up her car with all the things she had hoped to save from the Colorado wildfires, including her mom's wedding dress.
Due to a mechanical problem, she said, she lost control of her Subaru on Interstate 84, between Boise and Mountain Home, Idaho.
"I just couldn't go straight anymore and I ended up clipping the car next to me," she said, describing the fiery accident.
After clipping a Jeep she was trying to pass, her car ran off the highway. Her car began burning, sparking a fast-moving wildfire that eventually burned 2,000 acres.
T-shirt fundraiser for Colorado wildfire relief takes off
She grabbed her purse. Everything else she owned went up in flames.
"This is everything I own now," McCann said as she showed KTVB the few possessions from inside her purse.
"The adrenaline was going through me for a while, but after that started to fade it hit me pretty hard," McCann said.
"I know I got out and I saw that the field was on fire and at that point I was just ... I was pretty devastated. I didn't want to do anything like that," she said.
Colorado wildfire relief: 'Beginning of the long haul'
McCann said she is glad no one was hurt. Now she is looking to the future.
The Bureau of Land Management declared the crash-sparked Idaho wildfire controlled Wednesday night.
The wind-stoked 18,247-acre Waldo Canyon fire reduced 346 homes to ash and was the most destructive on record in Colorado. The blaze, burning mostly in the Pike National Fores, was blamed for the deaths of an elderly couple who perished inside their home. At one point more than 30,000 people within the city and surrounding area were under mandatory evacuation orders. Thieves looted 37 homes and 28 vehicles belonging to evacuees. Federal fire managers pronounced that wildfire 100 percent contained Tuesday nearly three weeks after it started.
Red Cross volunteers in the trenches for wildfire in Colorado
"This is a chance to start completely over," McCann told KTVB. "I have nothing. So I'll start with a new wardrobe and a new car, and a new state of mind. And I'll just move forward."
McCann wants to move to a new city and create something beautiful, she said. She says has auto insurance, and is working things out with the Jeep’s driver.
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This article includes reporting by NBC station KTVB of Boise, Idaho, Reuters and The Associated Press.
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Will her auto policy cover all the damages?
Article said she lost control due to mechanical failure. It also states her car ran off the road after clipping the Jeep. Did the mechanical failure occur as she was attempting to pass? May be hard to determine due to the extensive damage caused by the fire.
Check her cellphone records. I'm betting the mechanical failure involved her inability to drive straight while texting.
Sounds like a real life 'FINAL DESTINATION'. Better keep away from her for a while.
You can run from Mother Nature, but you can't hide......btw possessions are what is possessing people and causing all the damage and heartache. This lucky one had hers forcibly removed yet got to live....it's a message....Creator must find her very worthy of the love that is heaped on all of us all the time. The shift is now, get with it or go.
Yeah, that one kinda struck me too as being a little on the incredulous side.
Wow, and I thought I was having a bad day!
;-)
Sheila: will her auto policy cover the damages:
Depends on her policy and the limits of the liability set. If it is found that the crash was mechanical failure (NOT due to wear or failure of replacement for worn out parts but faulty design, or if the part/vehicle is still under warranty) and not driver error, then they may cover the crash. If the limit of liability is 20,000 or 50,000 (or whatever it is set at) that is all that the insurance will cover for the expense of the fire IF fire is a named peril covered under the contract. She would be liable for the rest of the expense of the fire if there is any.
The more pressing question you should ask is "Am I covered and for how much if this should happen to me" and ask your insurer what they would pay if you started a fire if the crash was deemed to be your fault. You are responsible for the coverage that you carry (or lack thereof) in a courtroom, so make certain that you ask your insurer lots of questions.
Uh, yeah Alex. OK, sure. We'll do that first thing Monday morning.
In the mean time, here's a link for the meaning of the expression "rhetorical question." Enjoy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question
Her steering was" locked" and she couldn't control her car, scarping against vehicles BUT she was trying to pass? Did she pass the brutalize?
I would think it would depend on how good her coverage is, we're fully covered and I'm not even sure ours would cover the cost of the fire, interesting question Sheila.
My opinion- how seriously messed up is this? Lord if it weren't for bad luck she'd have no luck at all, this is what would most likely happen to me too, I have luck like this. Glad no one was hurt though.
::points at the fool who believes her story and laughs:: The only thing sadder than your stupidity is how stupid the rest of your family is.
I'm stupid for believing this woman fine, but how exactly does that make the rest of my family stupid?
I don't know how it is in the rest of our country but in Washington State if a forest/wildland fire is started by accidental or extenuating circumstances the state picks up the tab. If the fire is started through negligence or willful disregard to fire bans etc the state RESERVES THE RIGHT TO PURSUE reimbursement. This doesn't mean they always do, just means they reserve the right to do such.
I believe her vehicle could have malfunctioned. Just because the chance is slim doesn't mean it can't happen. Besides, with vehicles now that are so complex and so many working parts and computer controlled components its a lot more realistic than you would like to think.
Thank you to all of you who collapsed pugiron
1SGFitzWife: There is no such thing as "full coverage"; your declaration statement on the first page of your policy should have the amount of liability for your contract - that is the limit that would be paid by your insurer towards the cost of the fire if fire is a named peril on said contract.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. Ditto on the pugiron - he's obviously the moron.
Thanks Alex I was unsure of how it works as I've never been in an accident *knock on wood*
I am beginning to think MSNBC has no editors and hires out their news reporting to non-native English speakers.
Most of the stories I read on here demonstrate sloppy journalism.
Gramatical errors and misleading headlines are beginning to be the norm.
Many of us see a "news" story and are left feeling the story is grossly incomplete or has be edited by monkeys. I attend and occasionally speak at meetings and later while reading a newspaper report of that event question if the reporter actually attended the meeting or event that was being "reported" on. Misinformed and under-informed seem to be journalistic standards these days.
read the new york times. the only real paper left, beside the cristian science monitor. and maybe the la times, but i haven't seen it for a while to know if zell screwed that paper up as badly as the chicago tribune.
he was supposed to be soooooooooo smart, but he really has lost his shirt on the papers. guess he ain't so smart after all.
wish he had left the trib alone. and he wonders why circulation is down.
To say nothing of the mispellings. ;)
Even third graders know to use spell-check and proofread their writing assignments. Apparently, MSNBC writers didn't graduate from third grade. Keep up the good work, fellas! Today obviously is not the day that you finally publish one single story that doesn't have significant errors. Your record is still unblemished.
Christian Science Monitor - now there's a oxymoron. The majority of religious folks chose to believe 2000 year old fables written by illiterate bronze age desert dwellers over anything provable through science. Willful ignorance.
Shoot this idiot in the head. She clipped a car because she is stupid and blamed it on "mechanical failure". The only people dumber than her are the morons who believe her.
My Subaru has broken down a few times as well. Maybe it was the car. An investigation will show what happened. "Shoot her in the head?" How about we shoot YOU?
Shoot her in the head when it may very well have been a mechanical failure? errr
How do you know so surely, o wise one, that she is lying about a mechanical failure? Just because it isn't likely, it doesn't mean it never happens. And you'd be surprised how often it DOES happen.
Everything she touches burns into ash.
Burn bans cause wildfires!
Let's see here: a 19-year old behind the wheel of a Subaru, likely caught up in stress and emotions, trying to pass a Jeep, who then blames the Subaru for causing her to lose control and crash. Subarus are some of the safest cars on the road. They don't just break. Now, if she had said she had a sudden blowout, or said she hit an animal, or even said she started hydroplaning if it were raining, she'd have said so and it would have been more understandable and excusable. But she didn't talk about a flat, nor an animal, nor was it raining obviously. All she said was she had a generic "mechanical problem" as in blame the car, not herself.
I'm sorry chick, but you failed yourself and only fool yourself (and the other naive people that believe your story).
Fascinating...
EPIC FAIL! The driver, not the car. As stated previously, Subaru's don't just break.
Not even a flat tire?
if she were not a she would she get the same kind of critizism for her car problems?
Sounds like her selfishness and desire to speed past the Jeep caused the wreck and the fire.
And all she's thinking about is getting a new wardrobe, a new car and starting over? Yes, it's just that easy for everyone caught in these infernos.
It could be that she was passing the car in the left (passing) lane of a four-lane divided highway. At least she would be using it for the reason it's there instead of the fools who think they should be just driving in it.
It would be interesting to hear from the Jeep's driver before everyone hastely condemn this woman.
If she clipped the jeep like was stated that is probably what caused her to lose control, much like the pit maneuver that the police do to eluding drivers.
screminmimi - How does it make her selfish to want to pass the Jeep? I don't believe her story about mechanical problems. I think she is just like most 19-year-olds. She was impatient, in a hurry, and not paying sufficient attention to her driving, probably because she was talking on her cell phone or texting. However, that doesn't make her selfish, just careless.
Come to Potsdam, N.Y. its a quiet town and decent work opportunities for someone starting out.
Good grief people ! Are you ALL REALLY that cynical ? If so, i feel sorry for you. What about the possibility that she is simply stating things as they happened ?
"Subarus don't just break" ? ALL vehicles are subject to mechanical failures at some point - and you don't get to pick where or when they happen.
Hey, it's a 19 year old blonde. She wouldn't know a blow out from a lightning bolt. It doesn't say how old that Suburu was either. After 20 years, they all break. Give her the benifit of the doubt.
Better to give her the doubt of the benefit......
Sleep deprivation?
bimbo
I am going to Colorado next Tuesday. Should I pack a fire extinguisher?
Nothing left to burn.
So many chances we take in life once we leave our happy homes. This poor woman didn't ask for all the negative comments being posted here. Think please people, it could have been you. I never wish negative thoughts on people because karma will come back and bite you good. A suggestion for this dear ones lost; move to Asheville, NC, a town with so much and quite remarkebly alot like Boulder. Peace and good luck in all your future accomplishments. To all, just remember the road and highways are a very dangerous place to be at any given moment.
The interstate road between Mountain Home and Boise is long and boring. Most drivers push the limits for speed so the average speed for cars is about 85. Cell service before Mt. Home is sporadic at best so when you get to Mt. Home many people begin using their phones. I am sorry for her, but I am not surprised. She is lucky she had her accident in a spot which is fairly flat. There are canyons, rivers, and deep gullies on other sections of the interstate.
That's not a massive fire...
That section of Idaho isn't exactly what you'd call "high dollar" real estate.
I have not learned much from reading these posts. None of you were there, yet you make many assumptions: Subaru, texting, 19, female, blond, passing, PTSD, mechanical failure and on and on and on.
I am old school and have learned that things will be determined in spite of my presumptions. Sometimes I am corect, but not real often.
i just hope she doesn't come to leave anywhere near me. with friends like her, who needs any enemies??
I drove by the area Wednesday night Jul 11. This wildfire was very near the weigh station prior to entering Boise ID. The cell service is spotty at best from Mt Home ID to Boise ID. Also it is not unusual for that stretch of road to have accidents due to natural disasters etc. As matter of fact, there have many been wildfires along that stretch of the road in the past month that have caused the road to be closed.
""I just couldn't go straight anymore and I ended up clipping the car next to me," she said, describing the fiery accident.
After clipping a Jeep she was trying to pass, her car ran off the highway. Her car began burning, sparking a fast-moving wildfire that eventually burned 2,000 acres."
She sounds like a pretty stupid and incompetent driver to me. If she was having trouble controlling her car to begin with, what was she doing trying to pass another vehicle? It's hard for me to believe that she did not begin having this problem until she started to pass the other vehicle, and if she was having it before passing, she should simply have pulled over to the side of the road instead of trying to pass. Was she drunk or on some kind of drug?
guess you could kick her in the ash-can! pretty hilarious, don't you think?
if you can't go straight anymore, why not give it the brake and slow down/stop? seems most people step on the gas and step on it more. never the break. breaks are for morons, it seems.
just go fast and go faster. but it is good to sometimes use the brakes and take a break. or have breakfast!
so break for breakfast and then you can go fast the rest of the morning! and if you need it have a cup of koffee. to keep you awake after your breakfast break. and fill up with gas too. you never know.
Why is it hard to believe that the problem started while she was passing the jeep? Just curious, since you seem to know so much about the case that wasn't stated?
Stupid texter... good to burn!