Unable To Locate...?

It's the middle of the night, and I'm fast asleep when the alarm rudely jolts me awake.  The dispatcher sends us off on what sounds like a wild goose chase.

Non-specific location + "possible" traffic collision +  3rd party caller that didn't bother to check on the occupants + 3 in the morning = wild goose chase (at least 99.2% of the time)

So we drive the whole 5 mile stretch of roadway that our ever-so-helpful reporting party thought the wreck might've been near without finding a single thing.  My partner keys up the mic to tell the dispatchers that we've driven the freeway and can't find the wreck when I happen to see that there's a darker patch of black against the night sky than there's supposed to be.  It's another mile north of us, and completely outside our jurisdiction, but we decide to check it out just to be on the safe side.

We round a bend a minute later and see a fully engulfed vehicle burning furiously on the shoulder on the southbound side of the expressway.  There are no agencies on scene, and we're the only emergency crew in sight, so we advise dispatch of the situation and our intentions.  We approach the carbeque and prepare to pass it, separated by just a couple of lanes and the center wall.  There doesn't appear to be any significant damage to the vehicle, and I attempt to update dispatch with the exact location and absence of obvious damage as we pass the car.

At that moment, however, the vehicle decided to explode.

Like full on, Jerry Bruckheimer-Michael Bay-Bruce Willis EXPLODE.  The driver's door blew off the frame of the car, the hood went flying, and I'm pretty sure both my partner and I needed fresh underwear.

I think the radio traffic went like this:

"Medic 31, this incident will be southbound, just north of HOLY BLEEP! (from me) BLEEP ME!" (from the partner)

We beat feet to reaccess the southbound lanes, hoping and praying that the car is unoccupied.  As we prepare to turn left on to the onramp, a state trooper flies by us.  We arrive on scene and the trooper gives us the all clear signal.  We make a quick face-to-face, and he informs us that this was a mechanical issue that resulted in a vehicle fire.  The occupant of the vehicle was safely off the roadway at an all-night diner, where he had called the police.  Somehow we never got the message that it was a simple vehicle fire, but oh well.

We decided to hang out and roast marshmallows (I kid, I kid) til the engine company got on scene, then get back to bed.  If it hadn't been the middle of the night, our outbursts probably would've gotten us a quick trip to the chief's office to explain ourselves,  but fortunately it was, and it didn't.  We did have a good laugh about it with him the next morning, though...