The number of non-crash vehicle fires is approximately one in 1,000 registered vehicles. Although frequent, these fires do not seem to attract much attention or investigation, because they do not usually result in injury or property claims beyond the vehicle replacement cost. Vehicle fires usually progress slowly in the early stages, allowing occupants time to escape injury. Injury or fatalities sometimes occur in cases where an occupant is asleep, disabled, intoxicated, or too young to escape. When burning vehicles are parked adjacent to or inside buildings, property losses can be catastrophic.
Most vehicle fires originate within the engine compartment.
Leakage of fuel, motor oil, transmission fluid, power steering fluid, brake fluid, or even coolant can lead to engine fires, and the leakage of a flammable or combustible liquid in an engine compartment results from some kind of failure. The failure may be a result of normal wear and tear, failure of a mechanic to make repairs safely, design failure which leads to rupture or abrasion of hoses or manufacturing defects in hoses, gaskets or fluid connections. About 15 percent of motor vehicle fires originate in the passenger compartment. The main causes of these are electrical short circuits and cigarettes. Catalytic converters can generate temperatures high enough to ignite surrounding materials.