Terrifying - was not aware of that.

In this case I think what happened is the nest more or less was incinerated from the heat of the engine. Hopefully that would have killed anything that would have been aerosolized.

you're probably right. the severity of hanta virus is pretty closely tied to exposure, so it's usually only lethal in cases where people were exposed to a large amount of rodent feces.

however, mice carry around a lot of other biohazards. if it happens again I would say google the disposal process, and/or check the CDC's reference material for it.