Bystanders raced to extinguish a car fire in Long Gully yesterday, futilely using a garden hose and buckets of water, as the owner “stood silent in shock”.
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Bendigo CFA arrived at the Wood Street scene just before 5pm yesterday, more than 10 minutes after the car caught fire; they used a hydraulic device to pry open the bonnet and extinguish the fire.
Witness Tim Sayer said it was “quite a scene”.
“I’ve never seen anything that bad and it was like the jaws of life to open up and bonnet and finally put the fire out,” he said.
“Before the CFA arrived, people were doing what they could to put it out, grabbing things from their house, but nothing worked – the flames were already in the dash and there was that much heat coming out it was impossible.”
Mr Sayer said the owner of the vehicle was “the only one not talking”, as he watched his car’s bonnet become engulfed in flames.
“He was in complete shock and didn’t really know what had caused the fire. He was just driving along when smoke started billowing out of the bonnet,” he said.
CFA Bendigo senior station officer Greg Hill said the Toyota 4Runner was totalled, as a result of the fire.
“This is not very common at all and if you look at the amount of cars on the road, a very small percentage catch on fire like this,” he said. “If this happens, we recommend a common sense approach – stop and vacate the car, call 000 and stay away.
“We see some people try and get their possessions out of the car but we would definitely not recommend that.”
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
