On July 4th, 2009 our Fire Department responded to a report of a working garage fire. I was the first officer (Senior Captain)to arrive on the scene. On arrival the attached two car garage was fully involved, as were both vehicles inside the garage. At the time of my arrival the garage doors had burnt away and both vehicles rear ends were facing the street. As I walked past the driveway, parallel to the house, something shot out of the garage towards me about two feet off the ground. It traveled the length of the driveway (approx. 50 feet) and continued past my legs and across the thirty foot wide cul-de-sac, almost striking a police officer on scene. Later on, after the fire was extinguished, we located the object. It was the piston that the bumper used to be attached to. Since both bumpers were completely burnt away this piston became a missile. As it turned out we later found out that all four pistons (two from each bumper of the BMW's ) had done the same thing.

Lessons Learned: Lesson learned is that you should approach a fully involved garage fire (with vehicles inside) with the same due caution you approach a vehicle fire, on an angle when possible.