Incident reported in Siesta Isles
A vehicle fire that erupted the afternoon of July 4 at a single-family home in the Siesta Isles neighborhood of Siesta Key caused second- and third-degree burns to 20% of the body of a 44-year-old male lawn-care worker, a Sarasota County Fire Department report said.
The report rated the victim’s injuries “Severe,” just above “Life Threatening,” on a list included in the Fire Department’s official report of the incident.
Witnesses told Fire Department personnel that the man “was trying to extinguish a gasoline fire on the driveway with a tarp when it caught fire and wrapped around his legs,” the report explained.
Bystanders had used a garden hose to extinguish the flames before firefighters arrived on the scene, the report added.
The EMS unit assigned to Fire Station 13 on Siesta Key transported the man, classified as a trauma victim, to Blake Hospital in Bradenton, the report said.
The victim was not identified in the report, which is standard practice because of health privacy laws. No other information about the victim was provided in the report.
Passersby who had spotted a vehicle on fire in the vicinity of the garage at the house alerted the Fire Department to the incident, the report noted.
The location was 5619 Cape Leyte Drive, the report added. Part of Cape Leyte runs parallel to Beach Road, across from an area of Siesta Public Beach, a map shows. The records maintained by Sarasota County Property Appraiser Bill Furst and his staff note that the home is owned by the Andrew C. Lisle Revocable Trust, with two trustees’ names: Andrew and Juliann M. Lisle. The two-story residence was constructed in 2018, the record says.
Further, the Fire Department report pointed out that when firefighters arrived at the home, they observed “several vehicles parked on the driveway exterior with the garage doors closed. There was a scorched area on the exterior driveway adjacent to a 2021 Ford Mustang Mach E which had heat damage to the front passenger side bumper.” Another scorched area was seen on the driveway “in front of one of the exterior brick columns of the garage. … Two other vehicles had windows smashed out.”
The investigation found no damage to the interior of the home, the report said.
The Fire Department estimated the total property damage at $2,000, with half of that representing “Contents.” The value of the contents prior to the incident was $35,000, the report pointed out.
The alarm about the incident came in at 3:57 p.m. on July 4, the report noted. The first unit arrived on the scene at 4:04 p.m., the report added. Altogether, 12 units were dispatched to the location, the report said, with six of those identified as fire suppression equipment and four as EMS vehicles. The number of responders was 27, with two of those indicated to have been senior Fire Department officers.
The last unit cleared the scene at 7:55 p.m., the report added.