Scripts:

On a windy night in 2005, 74-year-old Dolly Mohlis woke up smelling smoke, weaken by arthritis, she sent her husband Earl to find the source while she called 911. Earl looked into the garage and couldn't believe what he saw. Dolly's 1996 Ford F-150 truck was on fire in the garage attached to their home.

This is where you saw flames, er?

Well, it was more like, (right there), right down to... This hood was shut. The glass was in there yet. (right, right, yeah, yeah.)She was coming out here, right there. Right there is where she was coming out.

You saw the front of that pickup truck burning. That's what you saw.

You bet, yeah. She was burning.

Earl opened the garage door to try to get the truck out, but the wind approaching 50 miles an hour fanned the flames and they quickly enveloped the house. Fire Department in their rural east Iowa town couldn't get there quickly enough. Dolly , on the phone inside, was suddenly trapped.

It was burning so fast, the wind was blowing 50 miles an hour from the northwest. I said to Dolly , you gotta get out the house. She did, she came, she came around and then she never made it.

What caused the fire? Earl Mohlis now believes it began inside his wife's pickup truck under the hood in a tiny switch that was part of the cruise control mechanism. After the fire, he learned Ford had been recalling cruise control switches in other vehicles for years. But he did not know that Ford's similar to his pickup truck were catching fire even when they were turned off and the engine was cold.

Two years ago, CNN began airing a series of investigative reports on Ford cars and trucks suddenly erupting in flames. "(screaming)My house is on fire, please!" Our reports exposed what turned out to be a tiny electrical switch in the cruise control system that could burst into flame even hours after the car was turned off. "Here's the part." Ford had been recalling the parts in some cars and trucks back in 1999. But as we reported two years ago, as many as 3.7 million Ford cars and trucks were still on the road with similar cruise control switches inside, none under the recall. Earlier this month, a dramatic announcement from Ford, every single car and truck it built with the switches are being recalled. 3.6 million vehicles on the road will need to have their cruise control wiring replaced or repaired.

Keeping them honest, we asked Ford for an interview about the recall. Instead, a spokesman told us by phone that Ford is voluntarily announcing this huge recall in part because Ford could not be confident about the long-term durability of the switches. He also says media reports like CNN's have created fear among Ford owners. And the spokesman said the newly recalled vehicles do not have a higher than normal fire incidence. CNN has also learned federal investigators were continuing to observe what one federal safety official confided were elevated levels of suspect fires in Ford cars and trucks that had not been recalled. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had documented more than 600 fires since the cruise control switch was first introduced in 1992. The safety official also says investigators with NHTSA were in discussions with Ford about safety concerns when Ford suddenly announced the massive recall last week. Ford has denied and continues to deny its cruise control switch started the fire that killed Earl Mohlis's wife of 34 years. But this spring, Ford settled Mohlis's wrongful death lawsuit. Neither Mohlis nor Ford released terms of the settlement. But the hog farmer told the Des Moines register he still cries for his wife Dolly every day.

Drew Griffin, CNN, Atlanta.