Car Spontaneously Combusts in Northport

A 2010 Audi spontaneously combusted on Monday when its owner stopped to speak to a friend at the foot of Scudder Avenue, according to  Chief John McKenna.

The driver was heading west on Scudder Avenue and stopped at the stop sign at Woodbine Avenue when she saw a friend on the sidewalk.

"She said she was going down Scudder and she saw someone she knew and because it was a brand new car, he was complimenting her on it," Chief McKenna said. "The next thing she knew there was smoke coming through the dashboard vents. She quickly put it in park and got out. Her friend quickly grabbed her belongings or at least whatever he could get and then they called us."

McKenna said the call came in at 2:36 p.m. and the fire was under control at 2:45 p.m.

"The call came in from the county," he said. "There's an office building right there so people working there must've seen it and dialed 911 so it went out to county patrol and we banged it out."

To call the Northport Fire Department in case of emergency, call 757-1111. For non-emergencies, call  261-7504.

"It was pretty quick," McKenna said. "Car fires are relatively easy because they are small and contained so you swoop in and knock it out. All we had to do was put the wet stuff on the hot stuff."

McKenna said that, ironically, a second car fire took place about 12 hours later on Hawkins Drive. In that incident, the driver had returned home from a trip to Florida an hour before and had been inside his house.

Nobody was injured in either incident.