Car blaze in Abu Dhabi residential area

Residents reported seeing thick smoke pour from the vehicle on Sunday morning.

A car burst into flames and another one caught fire in Al Reef on Sunday morning. Security teams succeeded in containing the fire until Civil Defence could reach the scene.

ABU DHABI // A vehicle caught fire on Sunday morning in a gated community near Abu Dhabi airport.

Residents said they saw billows of black and grey smoke pouring out of the silver van parked outside a villa in Al Reef Villas complex, in the Desert cluster on Street 3.

Jansait Alasker, 34, from Jordan, said she passed by the burning vehicle at about 8.30am.

“We were going out and I saw the black cloud, so we went by car there to see what was going on. I saw the car on fire,” said Ms Alasker, who lives with her family in Al Reef Downtown, a nearby complex.

At first she saw only Al Reef security personnel responding to the fire, but about five minutes later, she said, she saw police and an ambulance entering the main gate to the complex.

The fire later reduced the van to a smouldering shell.

Al Reef Villas is a project of Manazel Real Estate, a company based in Abu Dhabi. Manazel could not be reached for comment on Sunday.

The community is situated on a million-square-metre plot of land and has more than 2,000 two to five-bedroom villas and townhouses, as well as more than 1,800 apartments ranging from studios to three-bedroom units.

Civil Defence was unavailable for comment on Sunday.