Conspiracies Sprout After 5 Cars Rented By Biden’s Secret Security Detail Burst Into Flames

Less than a day after President Joe Biden left Nantucket following his Thanksgiving weekend, five Hertz rental cars hired by his Secret Service detail burst into flames in the airport parking lot, sending conspiracy theorists into overdrive.

Photos of the burned out vehicles were shared on Twitter by the Nantucket Current: “The cars were owned by Hertz, and had just been returned by members of the Secret Service who had been using them during President Biden’s visit, sources said.”

A fire “involving multiple rental vehicles recently used by Secret Service agents erupted early Monday morning at Nantucket Memorial Airport,” reported the Current, noting that the cars had been returned less than 24 hours previously by the Secret Service.

According to a statement from Nantucket Memorial Airport, at 5:22 a.m. on Monday, airport staff observed an active fire through the closed circuit TV system in the rental car overflow area. Local fire and police departments responded and contained the fire.

“Something very fishy going on,” one YouTube user commented on the Nantucket Current’s video. “No freakin’ way was this a coincidence. Absolutely no way,” wrote another.

An investigation is underway. The working theory is that the fire started in a Ford Expedition, which was under a safety recall since May due to a faulty battery junction box that has been known to cause underhood fires. The recall affects 66,000 Ford Expeditions and Lincoln Navigators manufactured between December 2020 and April 2021.

“We believe these vehicle fires can be traced to a circuit board supplier that changed manufacturing locations during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic,” according to Ford’s website. “The printed circuit boards produced there are sometimes susceptible to a high-current short.”

As soon as it became known that the president’s Secret Service detail had just returned the burned-out vehicles, conspiracy theories began sprouting around the internet.

“I feel like the fact that 5 of President Biden’s Secret Service rental cars suddenly burst into flames in the Nantucket Airport parking lot less than 24 hours after they were returned should maybe be a slightly bigger story,” said one Twitter post that was retweeted nearly 8,000 times.

“Biden’s secret service rented vehicles burst into flames!” said another. “Terrorism? 5 vehicles caught fire. Something is very wrong here.”

Authorities do not appear to be jumping to such conclusions. Most underhood fires in recalled Expeditions and Navigators have occurred under strikingly similar circumstances, while the vehicles were parked and turned off.

“Of the eight fire allegations, six occurred while the vehicle was parked and off, and two occurred while driving,” says the initial March 2022 report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the part of the Department of Transportation that investigates car safety issues. Interestingly, the eight vehicles were owned by multiple rental car companies at various locations.

By mid-May, the government had 16 reports of underhood fires in 2021 Expedition and Navigator vehicles. Of those, 14 were rental vehicles and 12 of the fires had occurred while the vehicle was parked with the engine off. Consequently, Ford has advised owners that these vehicles should be parked outdoors and away from buildings.

In an email to Forbes, Hertz confirmed that it was working with the local authorities on their investigation but did not confirm that the Explorer in question had been scheduled for service under the recall.

Rental car companies are prohibited from renting out vehicles subject to safety recalls until they are fixed, under the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, also known as the “FAST Act,” passed by Congress in 2015.

“Rental car companies are supposed to pull those vehicles from their feet fleet until they can address the recall issue,” says Jonathan Weinberg, CEO of AutoSlash, a rental car deal-finder. “But there are a lot of recalls and rental car companies have a lot of different vehicle models, so their best efforts can be highly variable, depending on the company and the location.”