Smoke-Filled Car Crashes Through National Weather Center Gate, Bursts Into Flames

A smoke-filled car crashed through a gate at the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma, on Thursday afternoon and then burst into flames.

A body that appeared to be male was found inside the vehicle, Norman Fire Department Deputy Chief Jim Bailey told The Oklahoma Daily.

Robin Tanamachi, a research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies, did not witness the initial crash, but snapped a photo of the burning vehicle from a hallway in her office building afterward.

University of Oklahoma sophomore Ryan Bunker told the Daily that he and other meteorology students saw a cloud of smoke near the building, then ran to look closer and saw the vehicle had burst through a metal parking gate.

Scanner traffic indicated the car was filled with smoke before it went through the gate, according to the Norman Transcript.

The fire department received a call at 3:38 p.m., Bailey told the Daily. A bomb squad arrived after the fire was extinguished. The bomb squad detonated an item at the scene, but has not released information about what that item was, according to KOCO.

The University of Oklahoma Police Department is investigating the incident as a possible suicide.

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