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Sarah Catherall/Stuff
Reflective sunglasses can cause fires if left in the sun, the owner of a vehicle in the UK recently found out.
A vehicle fire last weekend in the UK was reportedly started by a pair of reflective sunglasses left on the dashboard.
According to Nottingham Fire and Rescue Service, the unattended shades bounced a concentrated ray of sunshine onto the plastic dashboard for long enough to set the car on fire, ultimately melting the car’s interior and parts of its engine bay.
A fire engine attended and put out the blaze, but it looks like the owner of the vehicle will be in chats with their insurance company as it won’t be driving anywhere soon.The event happened as the UK experiences high temperatures, with Saturday notching 24.3 degrees.
Since the weekend, the UK has seen temperatures as high as 24.8 degrees, with many other areas enjoying days of well over 20 degrees.
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Met Office meteorologist Alex Deakin told The Independent that high pressure would continue to dominate the country this week as a “cold front is shifting away”, bringing more fine weather.
June is the official start of summer in the UK, and it’s already looking to be a hot one. This week could see warmer weather yet, with predictions of over 25 degrees in some places.
The highest recorded temperature in the UK was 40.3 degrees in July 2022 in Coningsby, Lincolnshire.
Considering mercury levels over 25 are fairly typical for a New Zealand summer, the warning goes for Kiwi drivers too.
Paul Morgan/Supplied
If your car catches fire for any reason, don’t be a hero or try and save that Trade Me win from the boot.
If your car does catch fire – for any reason – keep well away and call the fire service. Car explosions aren’t quite like they are in the movies, but we’d rather you weren’t around to find out the exact differences.
If you drive an electric or hybrid car, you’ll especially want to put some distance between yourself and the car. A burning or heated battery releases toxic vapours. These vapours include sulphuric acid, oxides of carbon, nickel, lithium, copper, and cobalt, all of which are toxic to humans.
EV fires are still relatively rare but when they ignite they really don’t mess around.
AP
Electric vehicle fires can rage for hours or even days.
Most hybrids and electric vehicles use lithium-ion batteries which, if they catch on fire, are at risk of a process called ‘thermal runaway’. This happens when the cells inside the battery pack short circuit after being punctured (as in, after an accident) or due to a manufacturing defect and start producing ‘Joule energy’, which is when current passing through a conductor produces thermal energy.
This extra heat energy is often hard to dispel faster than it’s being produced, which in turn induces a chemical reaction to generate more heat, creating the vicious cycle called thermal runaway.
An EV caught in thermal runaway is extremely difficult to keep under control, as the battery is unstable enough to keep producing heat and re-igniting the blaze. Thousands of litres of water is needed to stop the flames – sometimes it’s actually easier to drop the car into a tank of cold water over a matter of days to keep the battery from combusting again.
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