And that was the essence of it. It was a very small car (by 1970's standards) and because of the placement & design of the gas tank, if they were rear-ended, they could & did blow up. To call it a "fuel fire" really doesn't connote the actual problem.
Paranoia at the time smeared across all Fords and for a while, all you could find in the used car lots were used Fords as people dumped them for anything else. I got a really nice '70 Torino wagon for $150 at the height of the craziness. Drove it for 6 months until things settled down & sold it for $500.