Petrol On Exhaust Caused Car Fire

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29985, 21 November 1962, Page 18

Petrol On Exhaust Caused Car Fire

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, November 20. Terrence John Boyd, aged three, died in a parked car from burns he suffered when petrol in a tin in the rear of the car leaked through on to the hot exhaust pipe and ignited, the Coroner (Mr K. A. Snedden) found today.

The boy’s mother, Mrs Phyllis Dormer Boyd, said she had had the car for about a month. Among other things in the rear of the car was a one-gallon tin of petrol on the floor. When she parked in Ponsonby road, on September 4 last, she left her sons Terrence and Russell aged 6, in the car and walked across the road. She had noticed a smell of

petrol, but took it to be coming from a faulty petrol pump which had recently been repaired. She had been looking at shop windows about a hundred yards from where the car was parked.

"I turned to see if the boys were still in the car and saw that there was smoke coming from it,” she said. “I immediately ran back to the car and as I got back Russell scrambled out of the driver’s door.

“I tried to get to the back seat to save the younger boy, but I think someone pulled me back.” Mrs Boyd said that as far as she could remember there were no matches in the car. She knew that after travelling a few miles the car used to get very hot on the floor boards.

Russell told her that Terry had been playing with the petrol tin and that it had leaked. Norman William Golding, station officer at the Ponsonby fire station, said he was standing outside the station when he saw a flash of flame. He immediately sounded the alarm. The car was blazing when the fire-engine arrived. Two high-pressure fog leads were brought into action and a rescue attempt was made. Station Officer Golding said that in his opinion the Are was caused either by hot particles of carbon soot contained in the exhaust system igniting with spilt petrol, or by petrol coming into contact with the hot metal. There were several holes in the floor of the car and these were directly above the exhaust.