Cigarette butt fire engulfs car

A woman's car has been reduced to ashes after a discarded cigarette was accidently flicked through the window.

Abi King had a lucky escape when she pulled over in Redhill Avenue, Bournemouth, after spotting flames leaping up to the roof of her Proton car.

The 20-year-old was driving in Dorset on Tuesday morning, when she noticed somebody discarding a cigarette butt.

If I'd stayed in the car for 10 seconds longer I'd have been a goner. Driver Abi King

She continued driving but later glanced over her shoulder to discover flames shooting from her vehicle.

Ms King, said: "If I'd stayed in the car for 10 seconds longer I'd have been a goner."

Severely damaged

Luckily, she pulled over near a local fire station.

Sub officer Dave Arundel, of Dorset Fire and Rescue, said : "When we got there the car looked like it had been set fire to because it was severely damaged in the passenger compartment.

"I thought it had been abandoned and torched. But the lady came along."

He added: "I was trying to establish what was in the car that could have caught fire and there was nothing.

"But she said when she was driving along she remembered somebody flicking out a cigarette end."

"So I took it that the cigarette end had gone into the back of the car. There is nothing else that could have caused the fire, " he said.