Thick black smoke billowed up from the parking lot of Seattle Distilling on Saturday evening as a Volkswagen van was engulfed in flames.

According to Seattle Distilling owner Tami Brockway Joyce, the Volkswagen Westfalia belonged to longtime islander Glenn Rukwid, an employee at Seattle Distilling.

“He went to start it up, he was just leaving the tasting room and it started smoking and burst into flames,” she said. “He called me and said, ‘I’m just letting you know that my car is on fire in your parking lot.’ I said that there was a fire extinguisher inside, but it was so far beyond that.”

Bob Larsen, Vashon Island Fire and Rescue’s (VIFR) interim assistant chief, said that the department received reports of the fire around 5:18 p.m. and sent five responders in two vehicles.

“We had another call going on at the same time. By the time we arrived it was fully engulfed,” Larsen said. “It was a total loss.”

A GoFundMe page has been set up for Rukwid. Joyce said that not only did he lose the car, which he had just bought, but he also had many of his belongings in the car that served as his “house and home.”

“Glenn is one in a million. He is a friend to all, master bartender, terrific karaoke rocker and kind-hearted soul,” Brockway Joyce said. “Glenn is the kind of guy who stops by Sporty’s on his way home from bartending at The Eagles — not for a drink, but to help Neja dump the cooking oil. She didn’t ask him to. But he knows she could use a hand so he always stops in.”

Saturday’s car fire was one of many incidents VIFR responded to last week, though few were related to the closure of the island’s health clinic.

The clinic at Sunrise Ridge closed on Aug. 5 and is awaiting occupancy by new health care provider Neighborcare Health. Those close to the situation hope the clinic will be ready to open next month, but the closure is expected to have an impact on VIFR’s call volume. Larsen said Monday that the impact has been “minimal” so far.

“In the last week we had maybe seven or eight calls that could have been handled by the clinic,” he said.

While Washington State Ferries (WSF) officials say that they have noticed an increase in medical transports off the island since the clinic’s closure, it is not clear if the occurrences are directly related.