FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – The woman driving the car that caught fire while waiting at a Starbucks drive-thru in Fresno earlier this month says the incident has left her in shambles as she tries to rebuild her future from the charred remains.
Chelsea Parker drove into line at a Starbucks drive-thru in Fresno, at the intersection of Clovis Avenue and Kings Canyon Road, shortly before 10 a.m. on May 8. While she was waiting in the drive-thru, she said she saw smoke coming out from underneath her vehicle.
Car catches fire while in Starbucks drive-thru in Fresno
“I am looking at my dashboard, there’s nothing. No indication that there’s anything overheating. Nothing at all was showing, overheating, or anything like that. No malfunction at all,” said Chelsea. “So I thought, you know, maybe, maybe I just need to get parked to a safe place.”
Chelsea says there was a gardener nearby who told her that her car was on fire. She pulled the car through the drive-thru, into a parking spot, got her young child and father out, and waited for the fire department to turn up. She watched as the flames spread underneath the hood of her car and left it a charred wreck.
The cause of the fire remains a mystery. Chelsea says she always tried to keep her car “in tip-top shape” to make sure her young children are as safe as they can be.
“I have to make sure that my car is in good working order, so there’s no way that it would just blow up like that.”
The incident has left Chelsea without transportation. The car was insured, but because it was financed the money from the insurance is going to pay off the balance left on the car and she does not have enough money for another down payment on a new car. There is also covering the cost of what was still in the car when it caught fire.
“All my belongings in my car and I go to night school for cosmetology and I had all my cosmetology products in my car…so everything is just trashed.”
Parker has two children, a two-year-old son, and a four-year-old girl, and reveals that she is only just breaking even after the incident. She is now trying to recover from the incident and has set up a GoFundMe online fundraiser to help with the costs the fire has incurred.
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