TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. — A chaotic scene erupted at a car wash in Tarpon Springs on Saturday morning when an ambulance suddenly broke out in flames.

According to the COO of Sunstar, the company that owns the ambulance, the first responders at the car wash noticed smoke coming from the floorboard of the driver’s side of the car.

When they checked, smoke turned into flames and that’s when they called the fire department.

It didn’t take long before loud explosions started coming from the ambulance.

For witnesses like John Hoffman, it was an unreal sight.

“You don't get a chance to see stuff like that every day,” Hoffman, who works across the street at Renardo Family Produce, said.

He noticed a large plume of black smoke coming from the car wash around 11:30 a.m.

“It was bad,” Hoffman said. “Have you ever seen burning rubber? That's what it looked like. Thick, black smoke. It was huge.”

“As soon as I got there,” Hoffman said, “[I] heard a big explosion of people just freaking out running.”

He says his coworker, Jeff, was yelling for people to get back and stay away from the commotion.

“I thought they were going to evacuate the whole street,” Hoffman said. “That's what I thought they're going to do. Evacuate all the way down.”

Although the car wash had to be closed, the street was open to traffic.

Police quickly worked to evacuate people from the immediate vicinity of the flames, while firefighters worked to extinguish the fire as quickly as possible.

Witnesses say it only took about five minutes for the fire to spread and the explosions to go off.

Hoffman expressed his relief that no one was hurt during the incident, saying, “Thank God for that.”

While it remains unclear what caused the fire, Hoffman thought the explosions were from the oxygen tanks inside the ambulance. Investigations into the incident are still ongoing.