Government Center has its steaming kettle and Newbury Street has its steaming storm-drain grate

The Steaming Grate. Photo by Chelsea Hanna Cohen.

Around 3:30 p.m., yesterday, an alert went out over Boston fire and police channels: Car on fire at Clarendon and Newbury. When first responders got there, though, they realized some well meaning 911 caller had been tricked by the Steaming Storm Drain Grate.

Apparently, this thing has been venting steam for years now. TriGen or the city or somebody sends a crew down every so often but never manages to fix whatever the problem is. So when conditions are just right and somebody parks on top of the thing, a passerby could have reason to think that steam is smoke and the car's about to erupt in flames.

J. Goodell jokes:

Sometimes I park there to degrease my undercarriage.