By:Alec Moore
Police and Hillsborough fire companies responded to a South Branch Road home on March 23 on a report of a car fire.
According to a police report, a 1997 Ford Taurus had burst into flames shortly after the family which owns the car had pulled into the driveway of their South Branch Road home.
The owner of the vehicle said that prior to the fire he, his wife and their two young children smelled an odor of gasoline and noticed that the gas gauge needle was dropping. The owner believed the car which he said was in need of new shocks had struck the road surface just before the gasoline odor became apparent.
When the owner’s wife, who was driving the Taurus, pulled into the driveway, he advised her to keep the car at the end of the driveway since smoke had begun to billow under the car’s hood. The family then left the car and then heard a loud "pop" sound, at which point flames could be seen from under the hood of the car.
Called to the scene, seven Hillsborough volunteer firefighters arrived in their personal vehicles, but were unable to extinguish the blaze without a fire truck. The police report said that when the fire truck arrived the entire car was engulfed in flames. The fire company then extinguished the blaze.
Investigators determined that there was nothing of a suspicious nature about the blaze and that the fire had been caused by the gas leak .
