Cricketer Rishabh Pant’s car catches fire after accident: How are such fires triggered

Car crashes and fires

While it is too early to speculate on the reasons for the crash, initial agency reports quoting eyewitnesses seem to suggest that
the fog on the highway could have been a factor. Driver fatigue could also be another factor, given that the accident took place in the early morning hours and Pant seems to have been driving alone. People are typically prone to dozing off in such circumstances, even though it’s too early to speculate as to what happened in this case.

Cricketer Rishabh Pant met with an accident on Delhi-Dehradun highway near Roorkee border, car catches fire. Further details awaited. pic.twitter.com/qXWg2zK5oC

— ANI (@ANI) December 30, 2022

On average, one in five car crashes results in a fire after impact. Fires are more commonly associated with crashes involving more than one vehicle, but in this case, Pant’s car crashed into a stationary divider and the fire seems to have been triggered by the impact of the crash.

There seems to have been a lag between the point of impact and the fire engulfing the vehicle, since the 25-year-old cricketer managed to make his way out of the wreckage and is reported to have suffered injuries to his head and torso specifically linked primarily to the trauma of the impact, and not suffered any burn injuries despite the vehicle getting completely charred afterwards.

Fire Triggers

Internal Combustion Engine vehicles are not supposed to combust spontaneously, and if they end up bursting into flames after an accident of the kind that Pant’s car suffered, there could be multiple triggers:

* Fires could result from leaks from the fuel tanks upon impact, with fuel lines being particularly susceptible to rupture if the accident was a severe one. Even a minor leak ignited by a spark can possibly trigger a fire. Also, flammable materials apart from the fuel, including engine oil, brake oil, or lubricants, can ignite when exposed to just a spark or contact with really hot metal parts.

* Another trigger for a car accident resulting in fires is defects in the vehicle’s electrical system, or after-market modifications made by owners. Electrical system failures are typically triggered when the elaborate electrical wiring running along the length of the vehicle gets damaged in an accident, resulting in severed cables or plugs that can then trigger sparks, which go on to start a small fire. This can then ignite the onboard fuel, triggering a bigger inferno.

*There are also instances of airbags exploding upon impact, triggering an onboard fire of the kind that was linked to a batch of airbags manufactured by Japanese company Takata. But these are extremely rare and almost inevitably involve a defective airbag.

The pattern of the Fire

Fuel tank-linked fires typically start under a vehicle and spread upwards as leaking petrol or diesel ignites. An electrical fire, on the other hand, starts off inside the vehicle and then spreads downwards and outwards.

Going by preliminary information and early eyewitness accounts, an electrical wiring-linked fire is unlikely to be the case, since an electrical part-linked fire typically starts inside the cabin and spreads outwards, unlike the fuel tank fire. Electrical wiring-linked fires typically offer less time for the occupants to escape without facing some degree of burns.