Boston's Raymond Flynn has been doing his Supermayor routine again. Flynn and his wife, Cathy, were leaving a charity event at a bookstore Tuesday when they saw a car on fire at an intersection.

As flames shot up 2 to 3 feet from the car's hood, Flynn sprayed it with a fire extinguisher provided by the bookstore while a crowd of 100 Christmas shoppers and a sidewalk Santa cheered from a safe distance.

The fire extinguisher was depleted before Flynn could put out the blaze, but fire trucks quickly took over and finished the job. At least one witness at first thought the incident was a publicity stunt, but as Flynn was dusting himself off afterward, he was heard to say, "People may think I did this for publicity."

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His other heroics include rescuing a handicapped person from a burning apartment in July 1987 and intervening with a gunman holding his wife hostage.

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