A car caught on fire in the C-10 parking lot at around 11 a.m. on Tuesday.

Undecided major Erin Ponce parked her ’98 Chrysler Lebaron convertible and was applying her make-up when she saw smoke coming out of the hood of her car.

In an attempt to get out of her car as soon as possible in fear of what could happen, she left her keys in the car and had locked the door.

She said, “(The police and firemen) had to bust the window open.”

When the fire department arrived, the campus police and traffic control officers blocked off the area and were not letting anyone get near the site.

It then resorted to popping open the hood and putting out the engine, which was on fire.

Once the fire was put out, it bust the window open in order to retrieve the keys and allow Ponce to remove her remaining articles from her car.

Firefighter Anthony Madrid stated that when the fire department arrived at the scene, the engine compartment was fully involved with fire, the car was determined a total loss and the origin of the fire was undetermined but no one was hurt.

Anthropology major Jessica Rojas saw when the firefighters arrived and were putting out the fire in Ponce’s car.

“Once they finished putting it out there was so much smoke everywhere. You just saw this big white and grey cloud over the parking lot,” she said.

Though firefighters could not determine what the origin of the fire was, Ponce highly doubts the car had not been giving her any trouble lately and doubted that it had overheated.

“It has been working fine,” she said, “It just kind of happened out of nowhere.”

She admitted she was extremely upset that this even happened. What she was most upset about was that she had a test at the same time and she would no longer be able to make it.

“I’m sure my professor will understand though, I mean my car literally burned down,” she said.

Jonathan Hegan, engineering major, was parked next to Ponce arrived when the firefighters were departing and was shocked to see his car dirty, wet and with ashes around his car.

He said, “I didn’t know what was going on. (The traffic control officers) were not letting me get through but I told them my car was the one parked next to (Ponce’s).”

Though his car did get dirty, he was glad that no one, Ponce in particular, was hurt.

“I’m just glad she got out of there in time. She could have not noticed and who knows what could have happened then,” he said.