I wondered why everyone was looking out of the windows in our building - turns out that a cab had caught fire; apparently it started under the hood. As I got there, a policeman opened the back door (presumably in case anyone was in there) and there was a loud 'pop' - he was knocked sideways as the cab 'exploded'.

It didn't actually explode - but the flames spread to the whole cab.

Nobody was badly hurt and by the time I got hold of my blackberry, the fire department had it under control.

But still, that was some fast response from the police and fire.