I've heard of two cases now, just months apart, where a car started on fire in the garage or driveway, and the whole house caught on fire and burned to the ground. In one case the car was in the garage and the house went down in minutes. In the other case the car was in the driveway and the fire department took too long to get there and when they did they hydrants weren't working right and the house went down to the ground. I've seen the first house (it's right nearby) and a friend has seen the other. My question is....how common is this?? I have never heard of it before these two cases and now I'm really worried!! Why on earth are cars just starting on fire like that?? The second case just happened Saturday night so we have little info, but the first one happened a few months ago and we know it was a BMW car and BMW thoroughly investigated the car and the case and found no reason for it to have burst into flames.

Has anyone else ever heard of this happening?? I thought cars only blew up if they crashed.

By Luvn29 on Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - 12:32 am:

I'm not sure how common this is, but my cousin's car caught on fire when sitting in the driveway, and luckily only melted some of the siding and windows!

It is scary!

By Unschoolmom on Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - 07:55 am:

Cars generally don't blow up when they crash and car fires are pretty uncommon. Fires can be caused by electrical problems and I think that's what happened with the Ford SUV's and trucks that were recalled a year or two ago. I had a fire when a gas jockey checked my oil and forgot to put to put the cap on. Oil blew all over the hot engine. Thankfully just keeping the hood down was enough to smother the flames with no damage to the car.

Other causes could be a stray cigarette thrown at the car and somehow finding a fume or leak, people storing flammable materials in a car on a hot day...There are a lot of possibilities and often no common cause. I'd chalk it up to coincidence and not worry about it.

By Karen~admin on Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - 08:00 am:

I don't know how common it is or not. But a number of years ago, my good friend was driving in her car and suddenly it started pouring smoke from underneath the hood and then it was on fire. She just got out in time.

By Kaye on Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - 08:04 am:

Ford had a big recall about 2 years ago because it was happening way too much. I don't know much more about it, my neighbors have a ford truck that is parked just outside my boy's window, I talked with them about making sure their truck wasn't on the recall list.

By Jewlz on Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - 09:41 am:

We had a truck that caught fire in 84. It was a ford truck. The fire department took so long to get there that it was a total loss. THey said it was a clogged fuel filter... but we had just changed all the filters a few months back. This is diffinely scarry. The fire happened at a friends house in there drive way.