A newsagent had a lucky escape after his car burst into flames in Mirfield.
Makhanjeet Singh, owner of Lee Green newsagents, had parked his car outside another newsagent’ s shop in Knowl Road early yesterday morning, to pick his share of the morning newspapers, when his car began smoking.
He leaped out of the driving seat as the car burst into flames.
Mr Singh said: “We get a joint newspaper delivery between ourselves and the newsagents in Knowl Road so I was just calling in to collect them.
“When I went to get back in the car I saw the car was smoking.
“I opened the bonnet and it burst into flames.”
Firefighters from Mirfield were called to the scene.
Crew Commander John Jackson said: “The car was fully alight when we arrived.
“It had come to rest by a wall due to the gradient of the street when the handbrake had failed.
“The driver was on the scene and was not injured.
“It is not being treated as suspicious.”
Meanwhile stag party revellers had the right training to deal with a minibus fire on the M62.
Cleckheaton Watch Commander Damian Cameron said it was fortunate there were four off-duty firefighters from North Yorkshire on board when the drama occurred on the motorway near Brighouse between Junction 25 and 24, westbound, at 11.50am yesterday.
He said: “An electrical fault with the wiring caused the fire to start behind the dashboard.
“The driver pulled onto the hard shoulder where the firefighters used copious bottles of Becks beer and a dry powder extinguisher to put it out.
“To be fair they did a really good job and extinguished the blaze before we arrived.
“Without their intervention the minibus could have been well alight.
“We disconnected the battery and the party of 10 men waited for another minibus from Ulleskelf, near Selby, to arrive.”
