Vehicle Fires Continue to be Under Reported

Thanks to a CBC Go Public news segment some news about vehicles fires has been leaked into the public domain. But far too many are never officially reported, let alone known by the public.

The Go Public program indicated that Chris Dietrich of Ayr Ontario submitted a photo (shown below) of his Hyundai Tuscon after it caught fire in his garage. The fire spread through his attached garage and could have threatened the lives of his family.

In another incident discussed by Go Public, Joseph Michielson of Coaldale Alberta submitted the photo below of his vehiclde that caught fire on a roadside.

The Go Public article also showed another photo (shown below) of a vehicle that was reportedly submitted by an owner who did not wish to be identified.

While the focus of the Go Public article was with respect to engine fires in Hyundai vehicles, the issue of increased numbers of vehicle fires in general has not been discussed. In many instances where there is a fire that erupts after a collision almost no attention is paid to the occurrence of the fire. Instead news media focus on the written news releases provided by police. Those police investigations discuss driver errors and failures and what charges have been laid with respect to driver inappropriate behaviour. But the fact that a fire erupted and may have taken the lives of collision-involved persons in rarely noted. While police should be reporting incidents of vehicle fires to Transport Canada there is not mention that such actions take place and it is most likely that they do not.

For these reasons there are many unreported vehicle fires that are occurring under the public radar. Yet it is only a matter of time before a vehicle fire turns into a major tragedy if these problems are not followed up.