Dramatic images show a burnt out car after it burst into flames within minutes of its driver fleeing the vehicle.
John Pearce revealed that he was initially oblivious to the fire and only stopped when a police officer flashed his lights at him.
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The 56-year-old British Airways pilot then noticed black smoke billowing from under the car – and it was engulfed in flames within a matter of minutes.
He said: ‘A policeman pulled out from the police station behind me and started flashing me.
‘I stopped and he came up to the window and said ‘the bottom of your car is on fire’.
‘We both had a look and I said ‘so it is’. There had been no clues or indication that anything was wrong inside the car – I couldn’t smell fire and no warning lights came on.
‘The whole thing went up in about ten minutes. In hindsight I wished I had parked a little further away from the house next to it as the flames were frighteningly close at one point.
‘But it could have been worse – no one was hurt and nothing else caught alight.’
The £14,000 Mercedes C350 AMG estate car burst into flames as Mr Pearce drove to his home in the village of Tarrant Monkton, near Blandford, Dorset.
Last year Mercedes recalled 75,000 cars in the UK following reports of fires occurring in certain models.
While one of these models was a C-Class, the problem was associated with cars made between 2015 and 2017, whereas Mr Pearce’s motor is six years old.
More: UK
A Dorset Police spokesman confirmed that they closed the road while the fire was dealt with and evacuated some residential properties for half an hour ‘due to the large flames and smoke drifting towards the properties’.
He confirmed there was also damage to some nearby BT phone boxes.
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