There was an orange ball of flames in the middle of a parking lot at the UTC Mall after a car caught fire near Sears.

Holiday shoppers looked on as firefighters tried to stop it from spreading to other cars.

Don McCune, 69, has had his share of life's misfortunes. Now, he adds one more to his list.

“Well, I was over at the VA and decided to stop here because of the traffic and go into Sears,” he said. "I was in there five minutes and they had an announcement there was a car fire and people should come out and move their car. So I came out to move my car and it was my car on fire.”

The flames shot into the sky and lit up the UTC parking lot between Sears and Crate and Barrel. There was nothing on the Ford Focus to be saved.

McCune said, “Burned up the whole engine, so the car is gone.”

We asked him how tough this would be for him financially. After a long pause, he said “Well, when you're a Marine you're always a Marine and you just keep on going.”

The parking lot was full, yet none of the cars around McCune's was damaged. Kristen Ferrara was parked right in front of his. We showed her pictures of the burning car.

She said, “That is crazy!”

She thinks Saint Nick was looking after her family's SUV.

“It's good Santa was looking out for us today,” Ferrara said. “We went to see him with our kids. So definitely good that we weren't here.”

As for McCune, he said he'll be taking the bus for a while.

“You can't let yourself get too down about anything," he said. "Keep on chugging.”