A burning ring of fire

Continuing in the tradition of reporting on flaming trash cans, KPRC made the most of a slow news day Tuesday by covering a burning tire downtown. No, really — they say it was one tire. Here's the story:

A tire caught fire in downtown Houston, sending thick black smoke into the air Tuesday, KPRC Local 2 reported.

Officials said the tire blaze occurred at the intersection of Canal and Chartres streets at about 10:45 a.m.

The fire department extinguished the fire in about 30 minutes.

Officials said the smoke did not pose a threat to the community.

No injuries were reported.

Yes, it apparently took HFD half an hour to extinguish a burning tire. And we still haven't figured out how someone could have been injured by a single tire aflame (unless they threw themselves onto the tire, that is, which we imagine would actually put the fire out). We figure there are three possible explanations: (1) a single burning tire is a bigger deal than we thought, (2) the story was actually talking about a bunch of burning tires, which can be a serious situation, or (3) things really were boring on Tuesday.