Car fire erupts in Sunken Meadow parking lot

A car fire at Sunken Meadow State Park Wednesday completely destroyed a Lincoln sedan and damaged two other cars on a day when the park was filled to capacity, authorities said.

The Kings Park Fire Department responded with five trucks, assisted by New York State Police, after park staff noticed the fire at around 2:30 p.m.

"With all these cars down here, something was bound to happen," said Mark O'Brien, Kings Park Fire Department chief, gesturing at the four full parking fields around him.

The fire started in the third parking field near where canoes launch from the park. Flames reached 10 feet high and the black smoke could be seen from the first parking field about a half mile away.

The Lincoln was destroyed and impounded; the two other cars were towed away and had less damage. No cause had been determined, he said, adding that the blaze likely started in the engine. There were no injuries, he said.

Out of the crowd of holiday revelers who amassed in the parking field to view firefighters hosing down the car, a distraught 16-year-old emerged, translating for his Chinese mother, the owner of a 2007 Odyssey adjacent to the burning Lincoln.

"Do you know what's going to happen to our car?" said the teenager, Joseph Lee, of Flushing.

"Every day, we use the car to get to work," said his mother, Heuikyoung Lee, 46, who runs a manicure shop in Jericho. "We don't have any other car."

Ronald Foley, regional director of New York State's parks department, said that the fire was all in a summer's day.

"You never know what to anticipate."