By Luke Voogt
Three elderly women have narrowly escaped injury after their car burst into flames on the Geelong Ring Road in Lovely Banks Tuesday afternoon.
They had just filled up at a nearby service station when they noticed something wrong, said Corio CFA Senior Station Officer Ross Crompton.
“They were just driving down the road when their vehicle started to run rough.”
The women pulled over into the emergency lane to check the engine of their Subaru Forrester.
“That’s when they noticed it was on fire,” Mr Crompton said.
While at first only the engine was ablaze soon flames engulfed the entire car.
Three Corio firetrucks and one from Geelong struggled to reach the blaze due to traffic being backed up for half a kilometre, Mr Crompton said.
When they reached the car firefighters brought the flames under control in 10 minutes, he said.
“When police turned up traffic was backed up all the way to Anakie Road.”
Mr Crompton said the fire left nothing but a charred ruin of the car, and was likely the result of a mechanical fault.
“Certainly there were no suspicious circumstances.”
The three women were unharmed and a friend took them home to Melbourne, he said.
