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The Burning Car
With the holiday now almost as far and away in miles as it is in my memory its back to the normality's of life in the Hough Taylor household, and today is by no means an exception.
Despite cleaning the house before we went away, with us being ensconced back in the nest for the best part of 2 weeks its time it had a clean once again. So with little hesitation (except for breakfast) I set about doing the usual chores involved with cleaning the house top to bottom, with a little sorting thrown in for good measure.
The guest bedroom was starting to become a repository for crap again, and with visitors 2 weekends out of the 4 in October I really need to spruce it up. I resisted the temptation to strip the wallpaper however and start to redecorate it (though it would be considerably easier than the hallway). I should decide on colour schemes and the like before I do that, rather than trash it and then wonder what on earth I am going to do with it thereafter. Once thing is for sure, the wood work will need doing and we probably need to get some furniture and shelves put up in there. Another task for another day perhaps.
I also have to pop to town to get rid of the post we are still receiving for the previous residents, and also send a package to a friend who's birthday it is today (I know I've cut it a bit fine and in fact the present will be a belated one). Whilst I'm there I get tea for tonight, which is scampi and chips.
Back home and I don't get up to much really, just a lot of faffing around on the computer with not much achieved at the end of it. The evening then goes quietly....
That is until about 18 minutes past midnight.
Blues and Twos arrive
At that point we are woken up by a car alarm that has gone off. Phil jumps out of bed somewhat bewildered thinking it may be the beemer, but imagine his surprise when he peers out of the window and sees a car across the street ablaze, with the flames getting higher by the second. There is no one around, we can't hear any sirens of a fire engine either, so I ring 999. There wasn't much point in doing that as the person on the end of the phone tells me that they already know about it. So we wait, and for what seems like an extortionate amount of time, when finally a fire engine turns up and starts to dampen down the blaze, which by now is in full gusto and belching out reams of black smoke. And, not that I like to revel in someone elses misery, but we managed to grab a few pictures as the car incinerated itself in the night.
I've no idea how the fire started, or who started it but it seemed like to me that the car caught alight from the inside as all the windows were shut. Add to this the fact that the flames were roaring from inside the car out of the gaps above the window where the seals must have already been burnt up, it maybe that there had been some kind of electrical fault, or maybe even a discarded cigarette butt left in the cabin.
Who knows, but I'm glad it wasn't my car.
Posted by Abi on the September 19, 2005 9:37 PM
With all the electronics in cars an electric problem is the most likely. Especially since a lot of the things are always on even when the car is switched off and 'unkeyed'.