State car catches fire on Havana highway

A state car, from the Specialized Protection Services company (Sepsa), has burned in the Siboney neighborhood, in the Havana municipality of Playa, according to images shared on Facebook by user Eddy Acanda, collaborator of the group Accidents, Buses & Trucks for more experience and fewer victims, dedicated to sharing trafficking events that take place on the Island.

In the video shared by Acanda you can see how the vehicle was completely burned. "Let him be thankful that it belongs to the State: if it belonged to you...", commented a witness to the accident.

Although the person who shared the photos does not explain when or at what exact point the fire occurred, in the images and videos you can see the car completely engulfed in flames, both on the hood and inside. Taking into account that it is the second fire of these characteristics that occurs this week in Cuba after An almond tree burned in San Antonio de los Baños, in the province of Artemisa, Internet users have begun to speculate about the possible causes. "That's really bad gasoline," says one of them in the post about the Sepsa car.

Vehicle fires have become increasingly common in Cuba, especially since the boom in electric motorcycles. In mid-April of this year, one of them "caught a candle alone" inside a home in Santos Suárez, in Diez de Octubre, a municipality where precisely this week A fire has broken out that has affected four houses in a citadel.

Also recently, a large fire destroyed the garage of a home in the municipality of Ranchuelo, province of Villa Clara, due to a failure in the battery of an electric motorcycle. It happened in house number 14, on Antonio Maceo Street between Juan B Contreras and Camilo Cienfuegos. The fire left the electric motorcycle completely unusable and caused structural damage to the home, but no human losses were reported.

Furthermore, at the beginning of April an electric motorcycle caught fire in Havana, leaving the family home severely damaged. In fact, the daughter of the owner of the house commented on Facebook that her brother's motorcycle had exploded and that the Firefighters took a long time to arrive. One of the Internet users pointed out that “most electric motorcycles are lithium. These batteries have a limit of charge cycles. Once they reach their last life cycles and if they continue to be charged, they tend to explode. A lithium fire is practically impossible to put out, neither water nor extinguishers,” he noted.

In March, a motorcycle was practically reduced to ashes after catching fire in the middle of the street, in the city of Jagüey Grande, in Matanzas. The accident occurred on Mora Street at the corner of 54, when the driver of the motor vehicle was traveling on the road. Passersby alerted the driver of the fire, who had time to get out of the vehicle, but could do nothing to put it out.

That same month, a bicycle taxi caught fire on the Calabazar bridge, In the Habana. According to a witness to the event, the origin of the fire could be related to the use of homemade or incorrectly repaired batteries, a common practice given the difficult economic situation and shortage of spare parts.

In any case, the most voracious fire in memory in Cuba dates back to August 5, 2022. when lightning struck a tank with 40 thousand gallons of fuel at the Matanzas Supertanker Base. The accident left 17 dead.