Fire Destroys Patrol Car Parked At Police Station

By Andrew Gorosko

Fire officials are investigating the cause of an accidental vehicle fire that destroyed a police patrol car while it was parked with its engine off in front of the police station at 3 Main Street early on the morning of Saturday, July 10.

Police Chief Michael Kehoe said that the incident resulted in a total loss of Car 09 and its electronic equipment. There were no injuries.

The destroyed vehicle had roughly 100,000 miles on its odometer and was on the verge of being replaced by a new patrol car, which police have received, he said.

Although police have a new replacement car, they now do not have the electronic equipment that would have been removed from Car 09 and placed in the new vehicle, he said. That equipment includes a mobile computer system, two-ray radio, radar gear, video camera, and roof-mounted emergency lights. The replacement costs for such electronic equipment might reach $35,000, he said.

The vehicle that was destroyed by fire was parked near the southeastern corner of the parking lot in front of the police station. That area is covered by police video surveillance cameras.

Deputy Fire Marshal Rich Frampton, who is investigating the incident, said he has a copy of the video surveillance recording made during the period when the incident occurred.

The police car was not being used during that work shift. The vehicle had last been driven on the preceding police work shift and was left parked in the parking lot at about 11:30 pm, Mr Frampton said.

 A wrecker driver who was traveling by the police station noticed that the parked police car was on fire and called the emergency dispatch center in the police station to alert police at about 1:39 am. A dispatcher there then placed a fire call to Newtown Hook & Ladder, which responded to the scene to extinguish the blaze.

According to the images seen on the surveillance recording, smoke was visible emanating from the marked Ford Crown Victoria sedan about 15 minutes earlier, Mr Frampton said.

After the car fire was discovered, the vehicles that were parked adjacent to the burning vehicle were moved away from the area, he said.

Mr Frampton said the car fire started under the Ford’s hood. Knowing the exact cause of the blaze could involve taking apart the heavily damaged engine to learn the point of ignition of the fire, he said. Heat generated by the fire exceeded 1,100 degrees, based on the evidence at the scene, including molten aluminum automotive parts, he said.

Mr Frampton said that routine maintenance on the Ford, which had been done at the town garage on July 8, apparently had no connection with the vehicle catching fire.

The vehicle had been driven about 60 miles between the time its was serviced and the time that it caught fire, he said. The police officer who had driven the vehicle on the work shift before it caught fire had noticed nothing unusual in the vehicle’s operation, Mr Frampton said.

“It’s unclear what caused the fire, but it appears to be accidental,” Mr Frampton said. A review of the video surveillance recording of the police station parking lot did not show anyone near the vehicle, leading investigators to believe that the fire was not set, he said.

Maureen Will, the town’s director of emergency communications, oversees the emergency communications dispatch center, which is located in the same building as the police station.

Ms Will said that evidently the dispatchers on duty at the time that the police car fire occurred did not see the video surveillance display of the police car smoldering before the fire was reported to them by the passerby.

“I don’t know why [the dispatchers] didn’t see it,” she said. “They are supposed to watch the [surveillance] monitors,” she said. She said she will be looking into why the police car fire was not noticed by the dispatchers before they were alerted of the fire.

If the town’s insurance firm wants to take apart the Ford’s engine to learn what caused the car fire, it could do so, Mr Frampton said. He said he would be presenting his investigatory findings to the insurance firm for its review. Mr Frampton is being aided in his investigation by police patrol Officer Steve Ketchum, who is the police department’s fire investigator.

Fred Hurley, town public works director, said that routine maintenance on police cars does not involve electrical work. The most likely cause for such a vehicle fire is an electrical problem, he said.