Disco 2 caught Fire!

My Disco 2 V8 Auto has just caught fire! it was parked in the garage with the ignition off (key in my pocket) and it hadn`t been used for several days. Fortunately I was tidying up the garage and noticed the electric window switch centre console had just caught fire for no apparent reason! fortunately i had a bucket of water handy and put out the flames, the centre console is a wreck but i saved the rest.

The wiring particularly the right hand electric window switches has been completely burnt, some of the Auto box wiring loom where it was close to the switches has been burnt and oddly the handbrake cable has melted through and snapped. (The disco had started to smell slightly inside for some weeks and it had got stronger and i wonder whether it was getting warm)

I have heard of a disco centre console catching fire before but what could have caused it??

Many thanks, i don`t want a repeat if i manage to repair it!
Halfshaft

Lucky you was in there my friend.

see tidying the garage was a good idea.

i suspect your main earth cables may not be providing the connection they should be, this has resulted in the hand brake cable being your earth connection, why it should have gone after 2 days is a bit of a mystery.

of cause that may be a load of crap but it sounds good.

Ok, here's one for you.

I've recently noticed the centre console on my 300tdi auto getting hot. When I say hot, I mean untouchabley hot and warping the PRND321 strip.
Whilst on the way to Wales the weekend, I told the mrs about it, so she took plastic cowling off while we were going along to see if there was anything obvious amiss.
She noticed the plastic which houses the backlight bulbs to the PRND321 strip were starting to distort and discolour.
It turns out the bulbs themselves were too high a wattage and the resulting heat would very easily start a fire.
After removing them, the whole area went stone cold again.

Just a thought...

intresting and bloody good point especially for those replacing dash bulbs etc, glad the fire wasnt any worse, lucky u were in the garage too.

would agree that its possible that hand brake cable has been acting as earth when starting engine etc and perhaps the non switched live load was the last straw and used the remaining wiring as an earth and hence over heated when key was out of vehicle as even using the fob or interior light load etc was too much for it

i can never understand why theres never an earth strap direct from the engine block to the battery neg, it would stop this earthing through the handbrake, which apears to be a peculiarity of landrovers, but also cure a lot of lazy starter motors aswell. what is the point of eathing the block to the body and then running another lead from body to battery.. it just doubles the number of joints in that side of the starter circuit.... i guess some bean counter decided putting in a couple of dodgy connections was cheaper than a couple of foot of thick cable.

if you have not already done so i would disconnect the battery.