"It was, for all intents and purposes, akin to an automobile idling in a driveway with half a tank of gasoline. And then it exploded." Not entirely unheard of.

"It was, for all intents and purposes, akin to an automobile idling in a driveway with half a tank of gasoline. And then it exploded." Not entirely unheard of. A certain vintage of Ford cars had a cruise control defect that led them to catch fire while parked (something to do with a switch connected to the brake hydraulics that was connected to +12V from the battery even while the car was off). There were, I believe, multiple rounds of recalls (as the problem manifested itself across a number of different models). In one case I'm familiar with, the car's owners left the car in their garage while they went on vacation. The car caught fire - fortunately the garage was sufficiently well sealed that the fire ran out of oxygen before it spread to the rest of the house. The recall notice for their car was waiting for them at the post office when they returned home. Damages, etc., were immediately taken care of by their insurance company and ultimately paid for by Ford - as I recall hearing the story this included thorough professional cleaning of rugs and such due to smoke from the fire making it into the rest of the house.