It was about 12.45h yesterday when a car burst into flames on a picnic layby next to the Ítrabo junction of the Jete road.

The driver explained that it had been over heating so he pulled over into the shade, but sudden smoke started coming out.

Although the fire service was alerted around that time, the Almuñécar fire service did not arrive until 13.09h; approximately 25 minutes later.

By this time that the car was nearly a burnt out shell, yet thanks to several drivers having stopped and offered their fire-extinguishers, the blaze had been considerably reduced by the time that the fire engines arrived.

Farm labourers working on a steep hillside just above the burning car struggled to disconnect and reroute the irrigation pipes to direct water at the stricken car, hosing it down. This rerouting of the irrigation pipes took about 10 minutes so that they had only just started dousing the fire when two fire engines arrived.

It was fortunate that this happened in a particularly green area next to irrigated avocado trees so the fire did not spread – if it had occurred anywhere further up where the roadside, tinder-dry grass stands uncut, there would have been a hillside fire to cope with.

(News: Jete, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)