Daylight has revealed the extent of a blaze that destroyed 6 vehicles and badly damaged a home in East Cowes during the early hours of this morning (Wednesday).
As first reported by Island Echo, a significant fire developed on Kingston Road at just before 03:00 when a Ford Transit campervan caught alight.
It is understood the flames quickly spread between the parked vehicles due to diesel leaking from the Transit, with the heat of the initial blaze damaging an end-of-terrace family home, melting window frames.
At the height of the incident, orange flames could be seen lighting up the night sky from the other side of the River Medina.
Hampshire & Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service spent several hours tackling the blaze and damping down the charred remains, with appliances from Newport, Cowes and Ryde involved – with further crews from Sandown and Shanklin mobilised.
With daylight now revealing the aftermath, significant damage can be seen to the property’s window frames and guttering, with window glass also smashed.
A Kia Ceed, Toyota Auris, Jaguar X-Type, Renault Megane estate and a Mitsubishi Outlander – as well as the Transit camper – have all been destroyed.
Emergency services have now stood down from the incident, but SGN engineers remain in attendance as they work to disconnect the affected property’s gas supply.
Minerva Road has been closed by Island Roads as operatives work to clear a major diesel spill across the junction with Kingston Road.
There are literally dozens of these old bangers parked up around the island.
Most are not even roadworthy, taxed or insured.
Drive through Ventnor and see how many of these bangers are parked up, especially in Park Avenue on the bus stop outside that rotting building with permanent scaffolding on the corner of Castle Road.
Loads more in Ryde too.
Do the Council or Police do anything? That’ll be the day!
Nothing stopping you informing the authorities if the cars are illegal. Easy to check and report. I have been doing this for years and the vehicles all disappear within 6 weeks.
What a load of b@ll@cks, the authorities still
cannot stop numpties parking illegally.
Will not, more like.
What planet do you live on where these disgusting eyesore and illegal vehicles are removed within 6 weeks? We’ve had one outside for over two years. Reported by dozens of neighbours to police AND council. IOW is fast becoming an absolute —-hole.
“Literally dozens” and yet zero fires. Vehicles dont tend just to go up in flames randomly, well aside ev.
I too have seen these old bangers, the SO called authorities
couldn’t crack an egg between them yet alone tow away
a jalopy.
Just to be clear I meant the “camper van” bangers.
You mean the two fairly new motorhomes and the small caravan parked on Park avenue, legally parked, causing no harm to anyone, except you, because you have a screen to hide behind?
Charge islandwide permit parking charges
that will move all the vehicles parked FREE of charge.
Lucky it wasn’t a ev vehicle
It would have destroyed the street
No luck involved, we have had no EV fires on the island yet every year we get many fossil fuel car fires. Did you not see the photos, nothing spreads fire like exploding petrol tanks.
Thankfully no one was injured or killed, big respect to the fire crews who deal with these things,
and for all you keyboard warriors how about being positive rather than negative in these comments..so much hate in this world, try spreading the love and praise, and being thankful to the blue light groups, rather than using this to bitch…
Says the bloke who 2 months ago posted this in relation to the Parking restriction at Afton:
“Let’s blame the islands main source of income for blocking the road… odd out of season it’s still congested down there it’s the local’s also… entitled “Karen’s n Kevin’s” that don’t give a “….” About anyone else the same ones who park on the zigzag lines and the pavement by Sainsbury’s while they just “ nip in”…! And before you all jump on your soap boxes it’s not just the younger members of the local community…! Life is all about “ MEMEMEMEME” these days.”
Where was “the love” there?
Loads of these vehicles along Springvale Road in Seaview too
It’s a free for all, start charging islandwide parking permit
charges and watch them move.
Love that idea, but would it impact tourism negatively?
BBC news stated the cause ( might be) an ‘engine fault’. Can anyone explain how, at 3am, an engine fault can cause a fire to start ? Diesel doesn’t burn ( under ‘normal’ circumstances)… assuming it was diesel driven.
It’s a very common for the positive cable to the starter to short out on the exhaust. Resulting in a lead acid battery fire. And with all that highly combustible liquid fuel on board, it goes up like a firework. Could be why they said that.
Glad no one got hurt, that looks really bad. I hope the van was insured and can pay for the damage.