A woman was left in tears as her new car was engulfed in flames just hours after someone shattered her car window in a mysterious case of vandalism in the San Fernando Valley.
Jyoti Patil was already devastated when someone smashed the driver's side window of her Honda Civic moments after she reported to police a fellow resident's car had been vandalized at the 6200 block of Owensmouth Avenue in Woodland Hills at around 11:30 p.m. Monday.
And just hours later she woke up to discover her vehicle was one of three that had been engulfed in flames in a residential carport, with a Ford Taurus and a BMW also being completely gutted by the fire.
"I was already crying when I went up (to my apartment) as mine is a new car," Patil said, "It took a lot... for me to buy a new car. I just bought it six months back."
Her fellow resident Dwayne Garner, who is another of the victims, said the Ford was the first vehicle to catch fire, and it later spread to the BMW and then Patil's Honda.
"That one (the Honda) started exploding, (there was a lot of ) glass exploding," Garner said.
The blaze was reported at around 3 a.m., Los Angeles Fire Department said. It took firefighters around 15 minutes to extinguish the flames.
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They managed to prevent it spreading to nearby town homes, though there may have been some smoke damage. No injuries were reported.
The cause of the fire is yet to be determined, and arson investigators are working to determine whether it was started deliberately.
