A pickup truck was destroyed by fire in the owner's driveway this morning.

Two vehicles caught fire in their driveways in unrelated incidents in Baiting Hollow and Aquebogue Monday morning.

The first incident occurred on Meeting House Creek Road around 9 a.m., when a Jeep caught fire in a homeowner’s driveway.

The vehicle was not running at the time of the incident. The homeowner said he turned the vehicle off at 9:30 p.m. last night and had not used it since, according to Riverhead Fire Department First Assistant Chief Kevin Brooks.

The fire was mainly concentrated in the engine compartment and extended into the dashboard, Brooks said.

The second incident occurred about an hour later on Oakleigh Avenue in Baiting Hollow, when Baiting Hollow resident Scott Dowd looked out of his window and saw smoke pouring from his truck.

“I was feeding the dog, heard a pop, came running out and called the fire department,” said Dowd. The truck was completely lost in the fire.

Dowd said he had recently spent more than $7,500 on parts and service for the vehicle, a Dodge 2003 RAM 1500, and that he hadn’t used it since Saturday, when it was “running great.”

Dowd’s vehicle also was not running at the time of the fire, Brooks said.

The causes of both fires are unknown, Brooks said. No one was injured in either incident.

RiverheadLOCAL photos by Peter Blasl

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article erroneously listed the site of the first vehicle fire as Jamesport.

 

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Katie, winner of the 2016 James Murphy Cub Reporter of the Year award from the L.I. Press Club, is a co-publisher of RiverheadLOCAL. A Riverhead native, she is a 2014 graduate of Stony Brook University. Email Katie