An SUV was totaled in a fire Sunday night that sent smoke billowing near the intersection of Looney Road and Ash Street.
The blaze was reported at 9:01 p.m. as a truck on fire, according to the Miami County Sheriff's Office dispatch center.
A motorist from Cincinnati driving a Ford Expedition on the way to Detroit was having mechanical problems when he got off Interstate 75 in Piqua, said Officer Paula Craft with the Piqua Police Department.
The driver stopped at a gas station, where he asked for a fire extinguisher to put out his smoking sport-utility vehicle. The gas station clerk gave him an extinguisher, but told him to move the SUV away from the gas pumps, Craft said.
That's how the vehicle ended up across the street in the parking lot of Sleep City, a mattress and furniture store in the 300 block of Looney Road.
There were no injuries reported, but the hand-held fire extinguisher was no match for the quickly spreading flames.
Piqua firefighters were called to the scene to put out the fire, but the vehicle is a total loss, Craft said.
The driver, whose name was not released, faces no citations because the vehicle fire was deemed accidental.