NEWPORT, Maine — A car carrying five New England Patriots fans back to Nova Scotia from Foxborough, Mass., caught fire Monday afternoon near Exit 161 and caused a temporary shutdown of the northbound lanes near Newport, Maine State Police said.
Three of the five occupants, who were all male, were college students, according to State Trooper Tucker Bonnevie.
“It did not happen on the exit. They’d all been to the Patriots game Sunday afternoon and were headed back,” he said. “Their 2007 Nissan Altima caught fire and was fully engulfed by the time emergency crews arrived.”
The fire was reported at 1:34 p.m. Monday.
No injuries resulted from the fire, but the car was a total loss and had to be towed from the scene after firefighters from Plymouth Fire Department responded. No ambulance was required.
“Both lanes were shut down for about 20 minutes, and then restricted to one lane for almost an hour,” Bonnevie said. “Traffic was back to normal in less than two hours.”
Bonnevie said one of the travelers got a ride to Bangor to rent a car and then drive back to pick the others up and finish the return trip.
The five Pats fans did get to witness a victory as New England beat the Buffalo Bills 37-31 at Gillette Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
Wow! There’s a good story to tell your friends back home…. sounds like something in the engine must have misfired big time
Or a wicked catch line…
“Where’s your car?”
“My car? Oh, no, I knew I forgot something!”
Glad they’re okay and hope they had an otherwise good time.
Glad they are ok.
The second part of your comment is very strange, and really not very appropriate. These kinds of things can happen to anyone regardless of what sports team they affiliate with.
I suppose you were joking and will take it that way.
Not much of a sense of humor huh?
Serious you are serious, flag it then
I simply stated an opinion; a comment. It is certainly nothing I would flag.
Well most people would, and i deleted the part that sounded rude, even though it was not.
I am glad they are all ok! That must have been quite frightening! I wonder if they all got their paperwork (ID’s, passports etc.) out of the car so that they could get home without anymore issue. What a mess that would be!
I accidentally just voted down on myself on this post. *sigh* They have changed the format on the comments!
Glad our neighbors to the north are safe.
And big thanks to the BDN for listing them as from Nova Scotia and
not Canadians.
As that might have started a firestorm of comments as to race/racism and etc.
from some of the nit-wits on here.
I drove by this and im glad everyone is okay! It was fully engulfed!
Just curious, did you happen to see the dog that got hit around mile 153 ? I saw it around 3:20, just wondering how long it had been there.
I did at about 3 p.m. I wondered if a family had stopped beside the road for some reason and the dog had gotten into the road and hit. When I passed by, there was a car stopped in front of a van, a woman seemingly gesturing and addressing a little group (including children) who I assumed were with the van and owned the dog. Without knowing if it happened this way, it looked like the agitated woman gesturing may have hit the dog and was explaining what happened. I felt very sorry when I came upon it. It was a sad scene.
glad these guys are ok. The biggest miracle is that traffic on I95 recovered in less than 2 hours.
Scary! I’m glad they’re alright.
Buy American as The USA has quality Control in place.
Buy American? What an odd suggestion. What are you trying to do? Turn our economy around and put Americans back to work? Don’t you realize how much cheaper the Chinese crap is? Don’t you realize how much money the “Americans ” that moved their factories to China are making off of our lack of patriotism at the cash register? Don’t you lose sleep at night worrying about who is going to be the first Trillionaire? How about a little compassion for the billionaires who are cashing in on “free” trade?
yeah, because no American car has ever caught fire..
back in the day i had one of those ford pyropinto ponys. the cat converter caught on fire sitting on top of gas tanks at big apple once
Foxborough is quite a haul from Nova Scotia… What a long trip that must have been for these folks!
There is no “ugh” in Foxboro.
I’ve seen it spelled both ways on road signs in that area.
That depends on how the season is going.
Why is it, that regardless of what kind of story appears online, somehow the comments turn into a political debate? There could be a story about cupcakes, and somebody will start a political commentary. It’s annoying, and perplexing.
So glad that the boys are ok. But some of you folks in blog land seem to have your panties in a bunch.
For anyone interested in an update, they made it back to Halifax at around 11:30 last night. My husband was in the front passenger seat. They lost everything that was in the car – including my husbands passport. Thankfully, they had no issues at the border, because they had other identification with them.
Thank you for all the well wishes everyone, this situation could have been a lot worse.
Wonderful news. Hope they had a better time at the game then the trip home. Take care all.
That Car must have been made in Pittsburgh.
If these guys had just been shopping would it rate a news story?Just because they drove all that way for a stupid foolball game made it news.