Up in smoke at PMC

Had Dawson Corfe not spotted smoke Tuesday night, the outcome of a vehicle fire could’ve been much worse.

The 11-year-old was walking to the Memorial Centre to watch the Mann Cup game when he noticed smoke.

The parking lots at the arena were full, so his family parked on a side street, making their way to the game at about 8 p.m.

As they walked toward the Memorial Centre, Dawson saw a small amount of white smoke in the parking lot where Kawartha Gymnastics sits.

“I just looked over that way to see how jam packed (the parking lot) was,” said Dawson, a Grade 6 student at Kawartha Heights Public School.

He pointed it out to his mom and they strolled over to see what was going on.

At the time, it just looked like smoke from a barbecue.

But as they got closer, they could see it was coming from under the hood of a vehicle.

Then there was a “poof ” and they ran back, only to see the car go up in smoke.

Bethann Corfe, Dawson’s mom, called 911 and firefighters were on scene within minutes.

Firefighters were able to safely extinguish the fire without anyone getting hurt.

Jeff Guest, Peterborough Fire Services platoon chief, said the fire originated in the car’s engine.

The blaze caused varying degrees of damage to three surrounding vehicles and the car that lit up is a total writeoff.

Damage for all four vehicles is pegged at $28,500 and the fire wasn’t deemed suspicious.

“There’s nothing to indicate, for us, that there was any cause for concern or out of the ordinary,” said Guest.

NOTE: See video of the fire online at www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com.