Cars on fire have become a bit of a recurring theme in Nanjing these past days, as spontaneous combustion and a mobile phone power bank have been the reasons handed down for three vehicles catching fire in the city recently.
Yesterday, 15 September, saw a car inexplicably burst into flames in southern Nanjing. At the time, the vehicle was driving along the Yingtian Da Jie viaduct.
Travelling in an east to west direction, the incident took place near the point where the viaduct passes over Daming Lu, reports The Paper.
The man driving the car was able to stop and make quick an escape. Fire fighters and police were on the scene within 10 minutes to close the road and extinguish the fire.
The vehicle was towed away from the scene and the road reopened approximately 1 hour later. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Elsewhere in our city, at about 13:00 on 30 August, police in Jiangning District were alerted to a fire in a residential community car park off Shuanglong Avenue.
Once on the scene, they saw that flames had engulfed the vehicle and were also beginning to set on fire another car parked nearby.
After investigation, police told reporters for Nanjing Daily that the cause of the fire was a mobile phone power bank which had been left in the car. In the intense heat of Nanjing’s summer, it had exploded.
Also in Jiangning and only 2 days prior, a resident surnamed Yang was driving home along Tianyin Avenue after buying vegetables, when suddenly smoke started to billow from under the car’s bonnet. Yang got out quickly to check.
An open fire was soon ignited, spreading quickly throughout the car’s body, with occasional small explosions. Emergency services had the fire under control very quickly.
In this instance, the vehicle’s spontaneous combustion was put down, in all likelihood, to ageing rubber pipes or sealing gaskets which are prone to oil leakage. For vehicles advanced in years, Nanjing’s summer can be quite the danger sometimes.
Police advise motorists that there will be some precursors prior to a vehicle spontaneously combusting, such as a dimmed instrument panel, high water temperature, a peculiar smell and smoke while driving.
