Dublin residents were startled by a fire and explosion at a Dublin center automotive repair shop around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Suzy Vogel, co-owner of AVA Restoration, said she was working in the shop when she happened to glance outside and see smoke coming out from under the hood of her own car.
“We happened to see smoke out of the back shop window, and we found the car on fire,” Vogel said.
Vogel quickly called 911 to alert the fire department.
Dublin Fire Chief Tom Vanderbilt confirmed that the vehicle fire was extinguished quickly and that no one was hurt.
“We got a call about a fully involved car fire, and we put out a first alarm just due to exposure and the location of the fire. We were able to put it out pretty quickly. We have a really good crew who jumped right on it,” Vanderbilt said. “It was lucky that it was outside.”
June Brening, who was across the street at the Dublin Community Center at the time of the incident, said someone from the community center ran across the street with the center’s fire extinguisher, but that they were not able to get close enough to the fire.
“Thank goodness it didn’t go the other direction, as it would have been heading for my house,” Brening said. “We saw them pushing other cars out of the way of the fire.”
Brening said the “smoke was really intense” before the fire was extinguished.
“The air quality was really bad for a while there, but the traffic kept flowing and they never closed the road,” she said.
Neighbor Kimberly Asbury, who lives across the street, said the Dublin Fire Department put the fire out “really quickly.”
“They were really fast and got it out, and thank goodness no one was hurt,” she said.
The cause of the fire is unknown.