{"id":17194,"date":"2025-06-26T20:26:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T20:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/17194\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T20:26:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T20:26:09","slug":"jacksonville-family-says-bmw-under-recall-caught-fire-destroying-their-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/17194\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville family says BMW under recall caught fire, destroying their home"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. <\/strong> \u2013 In April, Ben Gatewood and his family escaped their home after they say their BMW caught fire while parked in their garage, forcing them to flee with only the clothes on their backs.<\/p>\n

RELATED: <\/b>BMW X3 believed to have sparked devastating fire removed from JAX hourly garage<\/a><\/p>\n

The heavy smoke triggered a baby monitor to switch to night vision, capturing the intensity of the blaze.<\/p>\n

Damage inside a Jacksonville family’s home due to a BMW under recall catching fire, the family said. (Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n

Ben Gatewood described the heartbreaking scene. \u201cYeah. I mean, honestly, the saddest thing is seeing, like, the baby bottles,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ben, his wife, their baby, and his mother-in-law were living in the home that was largely destroyed by the fire.<\/p>\n

He recalled the frantic escape. \u201cWe ran out the backyard, and, you know, we had our shirts on our backs. Right. My wife grabbed the baby; dogs ran after us. And her mother is, like, currently fighting for her life against a brain tumor. We didn\u2019t even have time to grab her chemo pills.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the center of the fire was Ben\u2019s 2014 428i gas-powered BMW<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ben described the scene in the garage, saying his car was part of a multi-model recall announced in 2024. Ben said the recall offered no remedy. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt just said, \u2018Hey, there\u2019s a problem. If your car catches on fire while you\u2019re driving, get out of it,\u2019\u201d he explained. <\/p>\n

In August, BMW issued a recall for a water pump electrical connector that, in rare cases, could cause a fire. The recall covered models from 2012 to 2018, including several years of the 4 series and some X3 models.<\/p>\n

The Jacksonville Aviation Authority said a BMW X3 is believed to have caused the massive fire at the airport\u2019s hourly parking garage, though the model year and recall status remain unknown.<\/p>\n

Ben reached out to share his story after the airport fire.<\/p>\n

When asked about next steps, Ben said, \u201cSo we are reaching\u2014we\u2019ve reached out to BMW ourselves. Our homeowners\u2019 insurance covered it as a total loss. State Farm is our car insurance total loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said his family is caught between rebuilding their home and caring for his ailing mother-in-law.<\/p>\n

The extent of the damage caused by a BMW under recall that caught fire, according to a Jacksonville family (Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah. I mean, but then when I think about it, like I said, my mother-in-law finding a brain tumor. Building a house like right now is the least of our worries. I almost sometimes feel guilty to be like, \u2018Okay, let\u2019s look at floor plans right now.\u2019 It\u2019s like, no, we need to spend time with someone who we don\u2019t know how much time she has left.\u201d<\/p>\n

News4JAX has reached out to BMW to ask why the recall that included Ben\u2019s car did not advise owners to park outside, a precaution some recalls include when there is a fire risk. No response has been received yet.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 In April, Ben Gatewood and his family escaped their home after they say their BMW…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,16730,8314,3188,723,7310,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-17194","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-bmw","10":"tag-duval-county","11":"tag-fl","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-jacksonville","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}