A freak fire wrecked a car parked in a driveway and caused thousands of pounds worth of damage to a Fraserburgh home.
Ronnie McNab, 76, had parked the silver Vauxhall Zafira – usually driven by his daughter Carolyn – outside his house on Gallowhill Road so a neighbour could help him fix the vehicle.
But moments after the good Samaritan connected an electric pump to the car’s cigarette lighter, the vehicle went up in flames.
Mr McNab, the chairman of Fraserburgh’s Community Council, suspects the Wednesday night blaze was caused by a fault in the eight-year-old vehicle’s heater.
He had been warned by a local garage that the unit would need replaced two weeks earlier.
Last night he described how a neighbourly gesture ended in disaster.
He said: “We were going to take the car down to the garage on Friday to get a new tyre, but my neighbour came in last night (Wednesday) and said he could blow it up for me.
“He plugged the inflator into the cigarette lighter and the next thing I know he has come in and said the car has gone on fire. I looked out and saw the flames coming out of the bonnet.”
An appliance from the local fire station was called out and six firefighters brought the blaze under control.
The crew cut open the hood of the car to make sure the engine compartment posed no further risk.
By then, the damage to Mr McNab’s house had already been done.
As well as destroying the interior of the Zafira, the heat from the fire cracked the double glazed window in the living room and left the plastic frame of the window warped and charred.
Mr McNab said he was just thankful that no one was injured.
He added: “The insurance is going to cover it, but they didn’t give us a price. It will be around a couple of thousand pounds for the car and the same again for the windows, I’d say.
“These things can’t be helped, but it could have been worse. It could have happened when we were going along the road.”
A spokesman for the fire service advised motorists to take steps to keep themselves safe.
“If you’re unfortunate enough to be involved in a vehicle fire our advice would be to leave the vehicle, stand well back and call the emergency services.”
