NHTSA Complaint #11708596 — 2015 JEEP WRANGLER

Our 2015 Jeep Wrangler JK Unlimited just caught on fire. I happened to be in my daughter’s bedroom, 20 feet away from where the Jeep was parked. I thought I was seeing flames reflecting from the TV, but I realized that they were real. My next thought was that my husband was building a firepit fire. I thought that was weird because he was doing it in the front yard, but I didn’t think any more about it because I was so focused on my work. I went back to work for a second, but something told me to look again. I did, and then realized that it was the Jeep that was on fire. I screamed for my husband, but couldn’t find him; I was scared that he was in the Jeep. Actually, he had been in the back yard and heard me screaming, so he ran up front to see what was happening. I called 911 while my husband tried to put the fire out with the water hose, which didn’t help- the flames kept getting higher. It took firefighters a while to extinguish the flames and to get it cooled off. The engine appears to be melted. It is in our yard and available for inspection. The fire fighters made a report that my husband has requested. We’re waiting on the insurance company to contact us. The fire smelled electrical. We smelled no gasoline. I was absolutely horrified thinking about what might have happened if it had ignited at night when no one was looking. My daughter, my pets, my husband, and I could have all been casualties of this spontaneous fire. The fact that it was day time, the unusual coincidence that I was where I was so that I saw the fire, and the fact that my husband parked on a different side of the yard than usual, all probably are the reasons we are alive today. Had any one of those events not been in play, it could have been a very different outcome. My husband had no indication that there was a problem with the Jeep. He’d just driven it. He reported no odors and no problems at all. He takes excellent care of it, so it was in great condition.