NORFOLK, Va. — Imagine being woken up by a family member telling you your car is on fire in your driveway.
That’s what happened at a home on Troy Streey in Norfolk early Tuesday morning.
Video sent to News 3 by a viewer shows firefighters working to put out a fire that started in Kennidi Fulmore's car.
“My sister wakes me up. She’s like, ‘Your car’s on fire,'" Fulmore recalled. "I don’t believe her. She’s, like, ’No, seriously. Your car is on fire.’ I go outside to look. There’s tiny flames underneath the car. I go back into the house and my mom is, like, ’Your car is on fire.’ I’m, like, 'I know.' We go back outside and the flames are even bigger. It gets exponentially larger.”
Thankfully, no one was hurt in the fire but the car is a total loss and the home was damaged as well.
“We hear a pop, we hear a boom. The house is on fire," said Fulmore. "Around that time, the fire department comes."
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As of Tuesday afternoon, firefighters hadn't said what started the fire.
The National Transportation Safety Board says fires in electric vehicles with high-voltage lithium-ion batteries can put first responders at risk of being shocked by exposed battery parts.
The batteries can also get very hot, causing them to catch on fire or reignite.
While data can be found online about electric vehicle fires, a spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety Board said it’s hard to track the source of vehicle fires reliably.
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It's also important to note that vehicle fires can and do happen with non-electric vehicles, too. Data analyzed by Kelley Blue Book found that approximately 1,500 gas-powered and 3,400 hybrid vehicles were involved in fires for every 100,000 sold.
Despite what happened, Fulmore said she is remaining positive.
“Everything was out of my control. I took the best care of it," Fulmore said. "They don’t make this model anymore, so I’ll definitely be getting another kind of vehicle. Definitely not anything fully electric.”
As of Tuesday, the fire remained under investigation.
