Horn Assembly problems of the 1996 Chevrolet Express

The horn relay was smoking and melted the relay panel it was mounted to. Mora fire department was called. They disconnected the battery. The relay and fuse have been removed as a temporary fix until a dealer can install a new relay panel and find the problem. This gave no warning signs. The van had been turned off since 12:20 pm. The horn was silent at 2:00 pm when my wife brought something in from the rear compartment of the van. At around 3:10 pm my wife noticed the horn sounding and went to check it out. She noticed smoke from driver's side coming out from under the hood. She opened the hood and noticed the battery was also starting to smoke. She dialed the sheriff's office dispatcher to get the fire department on the scene. The fire department disconnected the battery and stayed afterwards to ensure no hot embers existed. ----dims 11 ivoq entry posted after 12/12/02 cut-over to artemis-----751677.