By Carolyn Cole/Staff Writer
published on Jan. 23, 2008

Lewis Streeter shook his head as heat from flames blistered off the paint from his 1939 Chevrolet and cracked windows he spent his retirement restoring.

The county man spent last Monday afternoon watching a burn pile containing storm debris in his back yard. He said he believed the fire was out before he went inside for lunch, but then he got a call from a neighbor that the detached garage he built almost three decades ago was smoking.

“All of this,” he said pointing to the gray ash pile, “was out and forgotten about.”

Mustang Fire Chief Carl Hickman said firefighters got the call at 2:48 p.m. and left the home in the 1300 block of South Sara Road at 5 p.m. He said he believes the burn pile started the fire.

“It apparently started from that,” he said. “There was no other cause found.”

As the Streeters watched firefighters work to extinguish the flames, Clara Streeter said they both loved the car. They had first seen it decades ago, and when the couple bought it the classic was “just a piece of junk,” Lewis Streeter said.