30 years ago, I was going home from work and noticed smoke coming out of the back of a VW van. I managed to get him to pull over by frantically flashing my lights and pointing to the shoulder, then went to see if I could help.
When we opened the engine compartment, there was lots of smoke and a bit of flame in the rear corner so I asked him if he had a fire extinguisher. As he dashed back to the cab to get that, I threw a few handfulls of gravel onto the flames.
Then buddy comes back, pulls the pin and hits the handle...while the extinguisher is pointed at me! I re-directed his aim and the flames were out in seconds. Then he reaches into the space and pulls out the end of a jumper cable. It seems his battery was flat, so he figured he would just hook up another battery using jumper cables while he drove to the garage. The jumper cables didn't agree and overheated.
He thanked me and drove away, leaving me looking like the Man From Glad. I should have sent the moron the dry-cleaning bill for the suit.
Les