From The New York Times on the Web (c) The New York Times Company. Reprinted with Permission.
It was, by all accounts, a cruel stroke of bad luck.
A new fire engine on its way to a New York Fire Department maintenance building in Queens inexplicably caught fire on Staten Island last night, officials said.
The truck, a water-pumping engine, was supposed to be the newest addition to Engine Company 289 in Queens, said Firefighter William Green, a Fire Department spokesman.
It was being delivered from the South Plainfield, N.J., office of Seagrave Fire Apparatus, the manufacturer, Firefighter Green said.
Instead, it caught on fire shortly after 7 p.m., turning heads and slowing traffic in the eastbound lanes of the Staten Island Expressway, the authorities said. No one was hurt.
Three fire engines and two ladder trucks rushed to the burning truck to extinguish the flames, Firefighter Green said.
"We got the call at 7:23 p.m.," he said. "They were on scene at 7:28 p.m."
The fire was put out immediately, but not before the engine had been extensively damaged, he said.
How the fire started remained a mystery.
"It was being driven and something went wrong," said Brian Roehrich, the service manager in South Plainfield for the Wisconsin-based company.
"We haven't determined the cause of the fire yet."
Traffic slowed to a crawl for several miles as two eastbound lanes on the expressway were closed at Hylan Boulevard to protect drivers from the burning engine, said Doug Heulitt, operations supervisor for Transcom, which reports traffic patterns for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The lanes opened again by 8:10 p.m., he said.
It was unclear last night if the engine would be salvageable. The company, which manufactures many of New York City's fire engines, said it was investigating.
As the truck was being towed back to New Jersey last night, investigators were trying to make sense of the baffling incident.
"It is definitely very bad luck," Mr. Roehrich said
