Texas firefighter quenches roadside blaze with beer

A Houston firefighter improvised while helping a truck driver put out a blazing tire Monday night, using the driver's own beer shipment to control the fire.

KROI-FM reported that Captain Craig Moreau and his wife were returning from a trip to Austin when they spotted the driver fighting the blaze on the side of the road with a small fire extinguisher.

"His rear brakes had locked up and were flaming pretty good," Moreau told KROI. "The flames were coming from the inside, so I took the extinguisher from him and crawled under the truck. The rest of the extinguisher knocked down the flames, but it quickly re-ignited."

When Moreau asked the driver what he had in the truck, he reportedly replied, "It's all beer," just as the tire exploded.

"I told him to open it up and hand me the beers as fast as he could," Morequ told KROI. "I shook them up, and popped a top one at a time until the fire was out and the brakes were cool. Thankfully they were tall-boys. I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of it all, he was so shaken up that the humor escaped him."

It took half a case of the driver's supply of Coors Banquet to finish the job, but Moreau told the Houston Chronicle it proved to be the difference.

"If the beer hadn't been there, the whole trailer would have burned up," Moreau said to the Chronicle. "A few more minutes down the road and it may not have worked."

Watch a video report on Moreau's quick thinking, posted by Buzz: 60 on Thursday, below.