Sugar House woman loses all belongings after car catches fire during Wyoming trip

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — A Sugar House woman said her car burst into flames while she was traveling on Highway 189 in Wyoming.

Laura Hopkinson was headed back home after spending time with her family for the holidays. She borrowed her dad's 2011 Subaru Outback and said she didn't see this coming.

"I'd been driving for about five hours, and all of a sudden the check engine light and the temperature gauge lights, and all of the lights came up on the dash board."

Hopkinson pulled over and said a truck driver stopped to help as well.

"He stopped, and he told me I needed to get out of the car," she said. "He ran back to his car and got an extinguisher, and he's like your car is on fire."

Not long after that, her entire car was in flames. Hopkinson said she lost a lot that was inside the car. She lost her computer, a lot of clothes, her cake-decorating supplies, etc.

She also lost a pair of angel earrings that were really important to her because her mom gave them to her about 15 years ago for Christmas — before she passed away.

Still, Hopkinson is grateful for the truck driver who stopped to help.

"Had he not stopped to help, I might have stayed in the front seat and called my dad on the phone, upset by the car not working.... I didn't smell the smoke until I opened the car door," she said.

KUTV asked what might have caused the car fire. Hopkinson said Wyoming Highway Patrol believes there was a chance the oil change she had right before leaving with the car was the issue. She hadn't driven the car since the oil change, and she'd been driving for around five hours, when this incident happened.

"When they changed the oil filter, there's an O-ring on the filter, but when you take the old one off, the oil ring doesn't necessarily come off, and you need to make sure it's off. It seems they put the oil filter on with the other O-ring still on, so it wasn't pushed down all the way, so it eventually wiggled itself loose and all the oil drained at once," she said.

KUTV reached out to Wyoming High Patrol to confirm this, but did not hear back.

KUTV did reach out to Back Shop Auto in West Valley. They're not connected to the incident in any way, but we wanted a professional opinion.

"It's a possibility the seal came off or caused a leak... But I've seen a lot of cars leak a lot of oil, but I've never seen any catch on fire because of an oil leak," service advisor Alex Caro said. "It's a possibility, but from my professional point of view, I don't think it was cause by oil."

Hopkinson said she'd been driving for five hours, and the engine was super hot, so that might have sparked something. It's hard to know for sure what happened, since there's so much damage to the car.

Overall, Hokinson said it was a scary experience. She has set up a GoFundMe account to help with some of her belongings destroyed in the fire.