Brush Fire Destroys Police Cruiser In Greenwich: PD

Crime & Safety

Brush Fire Destroys Police Cruiser In Greenwich: PD The police cruiser caught fire Wednesday morning during a medical call in town, the Greenwich Police Department said.

GREENWICH, CT — A Greenwich police cruiser was destroyed Wednesday morning when a brush fire caused it to burst into flames in Riverside.

"Thankfully, no one was injured in an incident today, but one of our vehicles was unfortunately destroyed. While responding to a medical call, one of our officers, while away from vehicle treating a patient, a brush fire started that ignited one of our units," police said in a Facebook post.

The cruiser caught fire on Thornhill Road, Lt. Patrick Smyth told Patch.

Connecticut has experienced very dry conditions for an extended period of time, and parking on or near dried vegetation can be hazardous.

The National Weather Service notes that a Red Flag Warning is currently in effect for Connecticut.

A Red Flag Warning is a warning to the firefighting community that if there is a fire, the weather conditions can be expected to cause erratic fire behavior, the CT Department of Energy & Environmental Protection website says.

The warnings are issued when winds will be sustained or there will be frequent gusts above a certain threshold, normally 25 mph.

Additionally, relative humidity needs to be below 30 percent and precipitation for the previous five days has to have been less than a quarter-inch.

The forecast in Greenwich is dry for the foreseeable future, according to the NWS.