LAUDERHILL, FLA. (WSVN) - Lauderhill residents woke up to some damaged cars in the neighborhood after the vehicles erupted in flames overnight.
Lauderhill Fire Rescue responded to the car fires at 6850 Landings Drive on Monday morning.
Officials said the fire was accidental. One car erupted in flames, and it spread to neighboring cars, even touching some of the homes nearby.
“Four cars got burned down,” said one witness.
One neighbor, who didn’t want to show her face on camera, said she had two of her cars destroyed in the blaze.
“We pretty much woke up to explosions and fire outside,” the neighbor said. “All of our cars got blown up, basically.”
The intense heat melted her door shut, trapping her and her cat inside.
“This had melted closed,” she said. “And my window, when I tried to jump out the window, my other car blew up right there at the window. So, I couldn’t get out.”
First responders were eventually able to get her and her cat to safety.
“He’s okay,” she said.
Alberta Johnson McBride, another resident, witnessed the car fires.
“The neighbor who lives right in front of where the cars were, her door was melted. So she had to throw her cat over the balcony,” said Johnson McBride. “I’m assuming she went out the back.”
Ashes and debris covered the driveway once the fire subsided.
Ring camera video from the Cielo Point Neighborhood showed flames growing as tall as the second story of some of the homes. The intense flames melting cars, a neighbor’s doorbell and ring camera, and even blinds behind a window.
Alberta rushed out of her home in the morning to move her vehicle out of the blaze’s pursuit.
“I had to move my car because we didn’t know. It was horrific. It was crazy,” Alberta said. “But it was scary. It was really, really scary.”
Neighbors say they are glad no one was hurt.
“I’m thankful to be alive and that it’s just things,” said the neighbor. “Things can be replaced; someone could have died; anything could have happened.”
“It was just crazy,” said Alberta. “It was so much fire. They came and told us we had to leave out the house in the back, out the balcony, just in case it blew up because that’s what it sounded like. But it was crazy. I was hoping to not wake up this morning to yellow tape.”
7News cameras captured the aftermath of the flames. Debris was seen on the ground where the burnt vehicles were parked before being towed away.
Lauderhill Fire said the fire appears to be accidental, with one car catching on fire and spreading to the others.
Officials said a mechanical problem with one of the vehicles is likely what started the blaze, but the fire is still being investigated.
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