My 2006 town and country is making a whining sound and yetsreday my starter cought on fire what could it be

 

were you trying to start the car up so much the starter locked up? or would the engine not spin over ?

 

So the van starts up on the first turn over Everytime we start it. My husband said about a week ago the van was staying running without a key in and that when he was driving the starter was turning over off and on when hitting bumps, while the van was in driving mode. Then the whining/squeal started. Then 2 days ago while driving the vehicle started smoking and on that day it had the whine. We removed the starter it was burnt up.

 

ok so get the circuit looked at also that causing the starter to stay on.