NORWAY – A mother and her two young children sought safety in a Main Street church Thursday afternoon when the pickup truck she was driving erupted in flames.

Neither Tina Levesque of Norway nor her two sons, Bailey, 4, and Trenton, 2, were injured in the fire that destroyed her 1986 Ford F-150 half-ton pickup truck in the parking lot of the First Universalist Church at 479 Main St.

Norway patrolman Duffy Ellsworth said the incident began when Tina Levesque was driving into town.

Ellsworth said Levesque thought something wasn’t right with the truck, and pulled into the church parking lot, where the vehicle stalled at about 1 p.m.

After trying to start it, she heard a “pop” sound, and the dash began emitting black smoke.

Ellsworth said Levesque quickly got her children out after realizing the extent of the problem.

When Norway firefighters arrived in Tanker No. 1, the truck’s cab was fully engulfed. Black smoke towered over the church creating the illusion that the church was on fire, but the inferno was about 30 feet from the building.

Capt. Mike Mann Jr. and firefighter Mike Golden had their hands full for several tense minutes while trying to knock down the fire in the cab and engine compartments, as it spread along the ground underneath toward the fuel tank.

An additional engine and tanker summoned to the scene were not needed.

No firefighters were injured.

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