The California Highway Patrol responded Thursday morning to a car fire in Truckee that the driver reportedly started to try to scare away bears.
According to CHP Officer Carlos Perez, officers responded around 5:30 a.m. to reports of a car fire alongside Interstate 80 near the Farad exit. When officers arrived, they found that a man had lit a fire on the hood of his car in an attempt to “keep bears away,” Perez said.
No bears were found in the area and responding officers determined that the man was under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
Officers were able to extinguish the fire before it spread beyond the hood of the car, but Perez said there was shrubbery in the area and the incident could have ignited a wildfire.
The man, only identified as a California resident in his 30s, was taken into police custody.
“We are always appreciative of additional fire extinguisher training, but in case anyone was wondering, no you (can’t) light a fire on the hood of your vehicle to ‘keep the bears away,’” the CHP Truckee division wrote in a social media post Thursday morning alongside a photo of the incident.
According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the best way to scare a bear away is to make loud noises and wild motions. Fire will not keep bears away.
Posts: 15181 | Location: Wine Country | Registered: September 20, 2000
Just your average California resident. They vote for anyone promising something free without any thought of the consequences. Now in a state notable for wildfires they set the hood of their car on fire to scare off bears. Must be too much sun frying their brains.
I've stopped counting.
Posts: 5783 | Location: Michigan | Registered: November 07, 2008
Sad thing is, the insurance company will probably pay the claim (assuming the idiot even has insurance). Stupid should hurt....
"If you’re a leader, you lead the way. Not just on the easy ones; you take the tough ones too…” – MAJ Richard D. Winters (1918-2011), E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil... Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel." - Isaiah 5:20,24
