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On the morning of Monday, January 9th, 2012, a Fort Lauderdale police officer was in the middle of a pursuit when the patrol car caught fire with the officer was behind the wheel. According to officials, the early morning incident led to a Fort Lauderdale crash due to the fire.
Fort Lauderdale police said that they received information that a business was being burglarized in a local shopping plaza early Monday morning, which led the patrol car to pursue the burglary suspect.
However, during the pursuit, the patrol car caught on fire. Officials are not sure how the fire started, but they did confirm that the fire fully engulfed the car in flames. Years ago, there was a similar problem with some patrol cars, which caught fire after the gas tank was punctured in a rear-end accident; however, this did not occur in this situation.
There was some speculation that the car could have overheated during the chase; however, the engine is up front, and the evidence of the fire shows that the entire back half of the car was burned up. A police representative said that police officers keep their road flares in the trunk, which may have been the cause of the fire; however, this has not been confirmed as the investigation is currently ongoing.
The female police officer driving the vehicle was able to get out of the vehicle uninjured, and the fire was put out when emergency crews arrived on scene.
As for the suspect, police officers spotted the suspect off State Road 84, near the Broward shipyards. However, officers said that the suspect was able to bail out of the car he was driving and ran away on foot.
Police are still looking for the suspect, and investigators are still trying to figure out how the fire in the patrol car started.
The Law Offices of Chalik & Chalik is glad to hear that there were no injuries involved in this Fort Lauderdale car fire.
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