SOUTHWEST MIAMI-DADE, FLA. (WSVN) - Crews have put out a car fire that sparked in the parking lot of Santa’s Enchanted Forest and spread to a trailer attached to it and another vehicle.
Miami-Dade Police and Fire Rescue units were dispatched to the scene along Southwest 40th Street, near 79th Avenue, in Southwest Miami-Dade, just after 7:30 p.m., Monday.
7News cameras captured some smoke still coming from the charred minivan, just after 10 p.m.
Patricia Gomez, the owner of the minivan, captured a video of the bright flames engulfing her vehicle and the ticket booth it was hauling.
“I was so sad,” Gomez said.
She returned to the scene at around 9 a.m. Tuesday as her minivan and ticket booth were towed away.
Gomez has worked at Santa’s Enchanted Forest as a contractor for more than 20 years, running trains that pick up park attendees from the parking lot to bring them to the entrance.
“I don’t know what happened,” said Gomez. “There was a small fire then all of a sudden the fire got bigger. We called firefighters but they didn’t make it in time.”
The busy parking lot was packed with plenty of witnesses, including Chaunce O’Connor, who recorded video of the blaze from across the street and posted it to Instagram.
“I saw the fire and then the pops and then a couple more pops during the thing,” said O’Connor. “Obviously, it had something in there that was flammable, ’cause it caught fire real quick, and the whole entire thing was engulfed.”
Gomez said the van was packed with her maintenance and emergency equipment for the trains.
Alexis Garcia came back to his vehicle at the end of the night and was shocked to see it was also burned, as it was parked one spot over from the minivan.
“I’m beeping for my car and I’m like, ‘Where is it?'” Garcia said, “so I keep on walking, and I see my car like this.”
Garcia is trying to figure out how he’ll get to work and to school at Florida International University once classes resume in the new year.
It’s the last thing he or Gomez thought they’d be dealing with on Christmas Eve, but there’s a bright side.
“Fortunately, nobody was hurt,” Gomez said. “Nothing happened to anyone. Thank God.”
According to officials, there were several Christmas lights displayed on the minivan and the ticket booth, but they’re not sure whether or not that caused the fire.
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