A Jeep Cherokee was destroyed in a fire, but no one was hurt and the flames didn’t spread into the nearby forest on Saturday, May 28 on the Marble Creek Pass road about 9 miles west of Baker City.

The fire happened a little before 8 a.m.

Baker County Sheriff Travis Ash, who responded to the 911 call from the Jeep’s owner, Pat Thomas, said Thomas was alone in the vehicle.

Ash said Thomas, who was planning to go for a mountain bike ride, noticed smoke coming from the engine compartment of the early 1990s vehicle.

Thomas parked in a turnout beside Marble Creek, about a mile before the road leading to the picnic area.

Flames had melted the hood latch, Ash said.

The cause of the fire isn’t known, he said.

Thomas called 911 at 7:54 a.m., according to the Baker County Dispatch Center.

Ash said that when he arrived the Jeep was “fully engulfed” in flames, and it wasn’t possible to douse the fire with a handheld extinguisher.

Sean Lee, chief of the Baker Rural Fire District, arrived with a tanker truck and was able to control the fire, Ash said.

Ash said it was fortunate that the fire happened now, after a period of cool, rainy weather, rather than later in the summer, when the flames might have spread into the forest.

“We’re lucky it’s early in the season, and it was really wet out there,” he said.