His car, parked on a pile of leaves, caught fire

A Montreal student learned the hard way that it’s better not to park on a pile of dead leaves after her car caught fire in the middle of a Montreal street Sunday.

Mei-Anne Lemieux arrived for dinner with friends less than an hour later Sunday evening when police called her to warn her that her car was engulfed in flames.

When she went outside in a panic, she immediately saw firefighters working on the fire on Avenue del Vecchio in the borough of Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.

“Later, the firemen asked me if I had driven too far before parking,” explains the 21-year-old.

“Their hypothesis is that something ignited the leaves and it got out of hand. Maybe an oil or gas leak or heat from my car. »

Total loss

In the photos she took after the sappers intervened, we can see a pile of dead leaves on the front of her car. Mei-Anne Lemieux reports that the unit caught fire.

Her little black Mazda was a total loss, she said.

As per our information, there is no criminal element involved.

In the United States, fire departments have already issued warnings: “Leaves are flammable, meaning they will burn. Parking a hot or running vehicle on a pile of leaves can lead to this,” the St. Louis, Mo., Fire Department wrote on Twitter in English, attaching a photo of a burning car.

For her part, the university student tells her story to prevent other “harmless” fires of this kind.

“I’m a little scared,” said Mei-Anne Lemieux, who vowed never to let her car move as dead leaves piled up again.