I don’t know what the story is on the driver and passenger in this vehicle, but I can understand why they decided that backing the frak up was a good idea. This is the fireworks market in Mexico that went FOOOM yesterday, with, last I heard, more than 30 dead.
I’ve never been anywhere near an inadvertent pyrotechnic event on this scale. I’ve been not quite this close to *advertent* pyrotechnic events of greater scale than this… Shuttle boosters being tested, old propellant and explosives being burned off, that sort of thing. Close to 20 years ago when I lived near Denver I happened across a truck on fire on the road up to Boulder… a small pickup truck with a crappy fiberglass camper. Normally such things make a lot of smoke and some fair flames, but this one was a rampaging inferno. It had some sort of high energy accelerants toasting it along. I don’t know what, exactly… but there was one of those fly-by-night fireworks revival tents just a few hundred yards down the road behind the truck. And *that* fire was sufficiently energetic that it was like the laws of physics had taken physical form and set up a “do not approach” sign. Interesting, as I was inching my way past it (note: I wasn’t first on the scene, but probably half-dozenth, so it would have been counterproductive to stop), the first official “first responder” showed up: a fireman tear-assing down the road in a fire-engine-red Porsche with the fire department logo on the doors and emergency lights permanently bolted to the roof.