VIDEO: 'Fireball' car sent rolling downhill after heat melts handbrake cable in South Yorkshire

The Volkswagen was sent careering downhill into a parked MG 6 after the ferocious heat melted its handbrake cable, it is believed.

The fire is thought to have been started deliberately, according to a shocked resident who watched as the blaze tore through the Volkswagen on Manor Drive in Whiston, Rotherham.

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Firefighters were able to extinguish the flames before they could spread to the second vehicle, but it was still damaged by the impact, which cracked the number plate and loosened the front bumper.

Courtney Cooke, whose husband Colin owns the MG 6, claimed he now faced a hefty bill as the other owner's insurer was refusing to pay out for the damage done to his car.

"They've said her insurance won't cover the damage to his car because she wasn't at fault for hitting it, it was the fault of the fire for melting the handbrake cable," she said.

The insurer of this car is refusing to pay out for damage to the other vehicle because it says the driver was not at fault

"But he wasn't at fault either and he's still being penalised because he'll have to pay the excess now and will lose his no claims bonus, which seems unfair," she said.

Mrs Cooke, a 27-year-old data analyst, told how her husband had run outside yesterday morning, at around 2am, after hearing what she described as popping sounds followed by a scream from a horrified onlooker.

"He ran out and saw the other car, which was a fireball, rolling downhill about 20 to 30 feet into his car," she said.

Firefighters were called at about 2am on Saturday morning

"The firefighters got here really quickly and they extinguished the flames at the back of the Volkswagen first so they could push it uphill and stop the fire from spreading to my husband's vehicle.

"The firefighters said they thought it was probably arson rather than an electrical fault, because the worst of the damage was to the interior. They told me they though an accelerant of some kind was used rather than petrol. We're still waiting for the police to come.

"We had a problem before when some kids went round vandalising people's cars but that was last year."

She added that had her husband's car not been there, the Volkswagen would have continued rolling straight into a house where an elderly couple live.