Traffic slowed to a crawl while the Renault burned in the middle of the highway.
A Renault Kangoo has reportedly caught fire on a stretch of the LDP highway near Paradigm Mall, PJ. This incident allegedly occurred around 3.30 p.m today (November 9th).
Thus far, not much is officially known about the incident. The pictures available of this burning French minivan though seems to suggest that the blaze originated from the engine compartment, before slowly engulfing the rest of the vehicle.
There is no word yet on whether the passengers got out of the car in time. Then again, the pictures of the car being stopped in the middle of the road suggests that the occupants had wisely bailed from the burning vehicle before the fire spread further. Eyewitness reports have indicated that the fire fighters were on the scene of the incident, and has since managed to extinguish the raging inferno that the minivan had since become.
The Kangoo unfortunately caught fire in the middle of the two lane flyover on this stretch of highly trafficked highway. Happily however there was an alternative route for traffic to bypass this burning Renault. Thus only a 20 minute traffic jam resulted from this incident.
Cars catching fire, contrary to the belief of many, is not actually that uncommon of an incident. After all, engines themselves run on internal combustion, generating thousands of tiny controlled explosions every minute when the engine is running. External combustion however, especially with no external influence such as a collision, as demonstrated here however is usually due to either shady aftermarket modifications, poor maintenance, bad luck, or all three of the above.
Dodgy aftermarket add-ons, especially electrical accessories, may overload the vehicle’s original electrical system, or have exposed wires at the end of the install. Both of these oversights could hence generate the spark that burns the entire car down. Poor maintenance meanwhile could lead to loose or brittle fuel hoses, that can eventually leak fuel onto a hot exhaust or battery, and thus start an engine fire.
That said, automakers have gone to great lengths to prevent these things from ever happening in the first place, more-so just out of the blue like in this case. In any case, a small fire extinguisher is only around RM 50. It may be redundant for the vast majority of the time, but to those who are cautious, it is better to be safe than sorry.
