Leno described the terrifying accident in an exclusive interview with TODAY’s Hoda Kotb. Despite the serious subject at hand, Leno fires off a solid joke in the first ten seconds. Kotb starts by saying that she’s so happy to be sitting across from Leno, to which he responds: “Well thank you, I’m afraid I had to get on fire to be on the TODAY Show.” Leno from the jump reminds us that not even being on fire can take the funny out of him. The two also discuss the support that poured in for Leno from fans, fellow car enthusiasts, and even President Joe Biden. But Kotb didn’t waste too much time with the chat and among his great collection of cars, the two got right into the discussion of what happened:
As Jason wrote in his explainer on how steam cars can cause a gas fire, Leno doesn’t just collect cars; he also enjoys working on them. He has enough money to pay the best mechanics, but Leno gets his hands dirty working on vehicles that some of us will never even see in real life. In this case, the vehicle was a 1907 White Model G steam car. Here’s Jason’s explanation for why a steam car has a gas tank: You can watch Jay Leno get this thing running in a 2012 video on his YouTube channel. In that video he burned his hand a little getting the fire started in the car’s burner: In the case of the White steamer, there’s a “pilot fuel” used to light the flame to get the water hot, and, as you can hear Jay say at this point in the video, the White uses gasoline to light the pilot of the car. It’s also worth noting that the gasoline tank in the car is pressurized, so if Jay was under the car and something happened to a fuel line, it’s not going to just drip out like a non-running internal combustion car would, but instead would spray out, since it’s under pressure.
As Leno explained to Kotb, the White’s fuel line was clogged and Jay was underneath the vehicle trying to free things up. Leno then had air blown through the fuel line, which caused gasoline to spray out in such a manner that Leno’s face got covered in fuel. Then, like real life imitating a Final Destination film, the pilot light jumped, igniting Leno’s face. Leno called over his friend Dave, who describes the situation as Leno being completely engulfed in flames, so much so that he couldn’t even see Leno’s face. Dave says that he smothered the fire by pulling Leno into his chest, to which Leno jokes “I thought it was a bad Tinder date, what’s going on here.” After a quick laugh, Dave gets back into telling the story. Leno’s face is now out, and Dave told him to go put some cold water on it. Meanwhile, Dave put the fire out on the car before going to check out on Leno. Dave describes layers of skin peeling off of Leno’s face and they called 911. Doctors told Leno to immediately go to a burn center, but at first, he drove himself home to his wife, Mavis. The pair would then go to the Grossman Burn Center, where doctors had to peel away layers of burned skin. Throughout the ordeal, Leno spent a lot of time cheering up hospital staff and even buying them lunch. When asked about if he worried about the outcome of his procedures, Leno said that when you look like him you don’t really worry about what you look like. He further said that his left ear was reconstructed and he underwent grafting procedures; he also spent eight hours a day getting hyperbaric oxygen therapy. This treatment involves a patient getting pure oxygen in a chamber where air pressure is 2 to 3 times higher than normal, allowing for faster healing. Leno closes out the interview by saying that keeping upbeat was part of his recovery. He says that accidents happen every day with people who work with their hands and he didn’t want to be the rich guy crying about getting burned. So he kept the jokes flowing. As for lessons learned? Leno jokes that he didn’t learn anything and that he will not be skittish about working on his own cars. We’re happy to hear that Leno is recovering well. Leno’s friend Dave says that he underplays how serious this situation was, and he’s not wrong. Thankfully it didn’t end worse, and hopefully, Jay Leno will be fully back in action soon.
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member. • Jay Leno Released From Burn Ward, And Why A Steam Car Caused A Gas Fire In The First Place • The New 2023 Toyota Prius is Sleeker, Bigger, Quieter and More Powerful, So Why Am I Bummed Out? • Jay Leno Seriously Burned After Gasoline Fire In His LA Garage “when you have an open fire, obviously you don’t want any fuel leaks” Unlike other “collectors” that just have a dark warehouse full of cars stashed away somewhere, that aren’t maintained, aren’t driven, and (in the case of locally famous lawyer we used to have here in Houston) haven’t even been seen by the owner. We tried catching the attention of the stand staff, but this was the 1980s and a French manufacturer, so the staff consisted almost entirely of skimpily clad young women whizzing around on rollerskates. Knocking on the windows and waving to them just prompted them to smile and wave back. I’m still here to tell the tale, so I suppose we got out somehow. I slammed my thumb into a brake rotor backing plate and instantly knew without any pain that I had royally f’d up… Then I saw the blood and nearly passed out, i thought I cut my thumb off at first but luckily it was just a lot of blood and a very deep slice (kept the thumb and motion in it and still have a scar after many many moons as a reminder) Nothing scarier than wrenching on something and feeling the wrench slip, feeling your hand smash into something and then just warm… Other than ya know, lighting your face on fire…. I am so glad this wasn’t worse and Jay is a national treasure at this point.
