A maintenance worker at the Girl Scout camp at 983N 350E in Jackson Township escaped injury on Thursday after setting a pickup truck on fire in an attempt to siphon gasoline from it, the Porter County Sheriff’s Police said.

According to police, at 12:47 p.m. the worker advised that he had been mowing the grass at the Girl Scout camp when he ran out of gas and “decided to siphon gas out of the pickup truck because he did not want to go the maintenance barn.”

The worker “then turned on a green Shop Vac and placed a gas can near the pickup truck,” police said. “He then proceeded to place a garden hose in the gas tank, then duct-taped the garden hose to plastic hose. He then attempted to secure the plastic hose to the vacuum but the plastic hose ignited. The pickup truck then caught on fire.”

The worker was able to douse the fire with an extinguisher, police said, but damage to the pickup truck was estimated at $3,000 and to the Shop Vac at $25.

Posted 6/3/2011