All of the tire fires that I have seen, the tires were still attached to the vehicles, and they were blazing away as well. Before I started burning tires, I might experiment with adding some motor oil (from the spare stock) to a fire, to see how much smoke was produced. I'm not certain that this is something that I want to practice. If I need assistance, and am outside of cell coverage, I will try ham radio next. Is there anywhere in the CONUS that a 25-watt 2-meter rig and a decent antenna cannot find a repeater?