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A car burned in the front yard of a home in the 100 block of Willow Creek Road shortly before 4:30 p.m. Friday.

Travis Towns said he had been out of his car about 20 minutes when his mother, Brenda Towns, looked out the window and saw fire spreading from around the vehicle’s steering column.

“I was just standing in the window on the phone and all of a sudden I saw fire at the front seat and at the steering wheel column,” she said. “I said, ‘Travis, your car’s on fire,’ and before we could get outside and get a water hose to it, it was completely engulfed.”

Travis Towns said his father was a firefighter, so he knew what to do about the blaze, but the house water hose was too little to make a difference on the blaze. Firefighters arrived and extinguished the burning car. The vehicle had gasoline stored in the trunk, Towns said, but the fire did not reach it.

“I don’t know what happened,” he said. “It wasn’t running, nothing was on. So far, I’m devastated. I had that car for six and a half years.”

Towns said he didn’t smoke in the vehicle.

“There were no cigarettes or anything like that that could do it,” he said.

LaGrange Fire Capt. Robert Taylor said about 5 p.m. that the fire appeared to have started near the steering wheel and there was nothing suspicious about it. He still was investigating the blaze.