Car on fire!

[Seshat]

Last night my husband woke me up.

Love, I need you to get up now.
Mrph?
There's a car on fire just outside the house.
MRPH!

I got dressed in record time, grabbed the cat carriers in case we needed to evacuate, and checked where the cats were.

He was still on the phone to 000 (our emergency #), and had grabbed the opportunity while the operator was dispatching the fire engines to wake me.

It turns out someone had abandoned a stolen car outside a couple of days ago (a car with a 'usual' parking spot isn't unusual in our district - we don't have many folks who park on the street, but we do have some). And decided to petrol bomb it last night.

So .. yay. Lights, sirens, my husband giving a police report, and my throat hurts like fury today.

[Mishi]

Glad you're all okay! Well, other than a sore throat and interrupted sleep. I really hope that the owners have as little trouble as possible replacing it and that the little bastards that did it get caught soon. Did it make much of a mess?

[draggar]

Same here, I'm glad you're (and everyone else) are OK.

Smoke inhalation is never fun.

[MoonCat]

Yow, reminds me of the time in my old neighborhood when somebody set a car on fire across the street. Apparently they were delivering "a message" to someone who lived there.

Yeah, that was one of the reasons I got the hell out of that street.

[Seshat]

Did it make much of a mess?

Surprisingly little! A bit of scorched grass and one of our fruit trees is a bit damaged, and some marks on the road that the rain will wash away.

As far as we know, noone's being 'taught a lesson' here: Dancer (my husband) didn't get any feeling from the police other than 'some idiot car thief'.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Holy crap! Where do you live, freaking Beirut?

[Food Lady]

I'm glad you're ok! I've only seen a car on fire once. It was in the parking lot of a 7Eleven. It was crazy.

[Seshat]

Holy crap! Where do you live, freaking Beirut?

Melbourne, Australia.

You don't expect this sort of thing here.

[taxguykarl]

I've only seen a car on fire once. It was in the parking lot of a 7Eleven. It was crazy.

I saw one near a car wash. WOW. Back to the OP: Glad to see Seshat, Mr. Seshat and the kitties are OK.

[Seshat]

Yes: everyone's fine. So's the dog (not previously mentioned: her leash is always on hand and she's easier to find than the cats).

[XCashier]

Someone set my brother's car on fire when he was at a party at the river bottom.

My parents got a lump of twisted metal smaller than the palm of the hand; that was all that was left of the engine block.

[lordlundar]

It's weird twist that some car thieves do. They steal the car, then when they have their fun, to be "nice" to the owners, they torch it so the owner can claim insurance on it.

One thief got in the Darwin Awards doing this when he lit the car while still sitting in it and wasn't able to get out in time.

[protege]

It's weird twist that some car thieves do. They steal the car, then when they have their fun, to be "nice" to the owners, they torch it so the owner can claim insurance on it.

If they're going to use the car to commit another crime (rob a bank, store, etc.) they'll torch the car to get rid of any possible evidence. No more fingerprints, DNA, or drugs that will come back to haunt them later. The real winners though, are the idiots who steal cars...and then torch them during the dry season here. The fire department just *loves* dealing with that, but it happens nearly every summer.

[Seshat]

We got lucky - Dancer heard the windows break, and was on the phone to 000 almost immediately after that. And the fire department is barely more than two minutes away even without lights-and-sirens. He was still on the phone with 000 when they showed up.

So it was all taken care of before anything other than the car was more than scorched. (And the things scorched? Some grass, and a bit of our apricot tree. Nothing that won't recover.)