Where there’s no smoking, there’s fire? Drivers have been racking their brains after finding mysterious burn marks in their cars, despite the fact that they don’t smoke. The issue has come to light on social media, where victims have been posting their strange encounters with burn marks in their vehicles. One screenshot showed a scorch mark traversing a sun visor, as if someone sliced across it with a laser. Other examples include a long black burn mark that ran across the entire headliner of a car, and another that melted through the visor. Even more common were what looked like cigarette burns in the interior of some cars. They’re apparently so common that many people have been falsely accused of smoking in their cars, even though they have denied it. One young man said his parents accused him of smoking because of a burn mark in the seat, though he swears he has never even had the desire to smoke. So, what's the common cause of these charred cars? You might think that the one thing that connects all of these cases is a water bottle left in the vehicle. That's because water bottles are known to be the perfect tool for focusing sunlight — just like a magnifying glass — melting and burning the interior of people’s cars with the beam. These firewater fiascos are so prevalent that fire departments have held demonstrations on the phenomenon, showing that you can actually set a piece paper on fire with nothing more than a bottle of water, the sun and a few minutes. However, not all of these marks are caused by water bottles. The long, ceiling-scorching burn marks were the result of leaving a makeup mirror in a passenger seat. Any sufficiently reflective surface will produce this destructive beam. Another person left a CD on a seat and it did the dirty deed. The best thing you can do is make sure that no reflective surfaces are left out when you close up your car for the day.
