BUCKHANNON – A woman who happened to pull into the bowling alley parking lot just after 9:30 a.m. Monday morning is lucky she did.

Almost immediately after she parked in the Buckhannon Lanes lot and stepped out of her vehicle, a fire broke out that fully engulfed her Mercedes Benz SUV, career firefighter John Brugnoli with the Buckhannon Fire Department said Monday afternoon.

Brugnoli said the woman – the BFD did not release her name – had stepped out of her vehicle prior to the onset of the blaze.

“No one was in it (the vehicle) at the time,” Brugnoli said. “She had just pulled over, and she didn’t even know it was on fire until someone told her.”

He added the SUV was fully involved and ended up being a total loss, regardless of the efforts of six firefighters. Brugnoli added the department was paged out at 9:43 a.m. and arrived on scene in 4 minutes.

As for the cause of the fire?

The department is unsure at this time and has called in the West Virginia State Fire Marshal’s Office to investigate.

“We were looking over a few different things, but it’s undetermined right now, and [the fire marshal’s office] is going to investigate it for us,” Brugnoli said.

“It’s been a busy day,” he added. “I think we’ve had 12 calls since midnight (Monday morning).”