Twenty-seven cars have been burned in Orange over the past two months, and 13 have been torched in the first 31 days of this year alone. 

Police and emergency services responded to nearly 50 vehicles set alight in 2018, but those incidents aren’t exclusively cars stolen and burned in the scourge of car fires which has struck Orange over summer. 

January has seen a huge uptake on cars burned, with the 13 so far this year 10 more destroyed vehicles than the first 31 days of 2018. 

No-one has been arrested in connection to the incidents. 

NSW Fire and Rescue station officer Matt Jeffery said firefighters were expecting fire cars on night shifts.

“It’s become a continuous situation and they’re concentrated in groups,” he said.

“Sometimes you’ll get two shifts in a row with one or two and then it quietens down, but it keeps coming back.”

Mr Jeffery couldn’t put a figure on the number of car fires he’s attended. 

However, he said firefighters were “human as well” and were just as concerned by the spate of vehicles being torched as the public was. 

“All of us live in town or live close to town, and we all go out [on jobs] thinking ‘I don't want it to be my car’,” he said. 

“Every car has a story behind it, whether it’s a mother who used it to drive the kids to school or a tradie with all his tools in it.”

Mr Jeffery said thieves stealing cars would often leave them in neutral or even with the engine running, leading to instances like last week’s blaze where a car rolled across Maxwell Avenue into a verandah and nearly setting the house on fire.

He said “it’s only a matter of time” before a house is caught in a blaze should arsonists continue to torch cars in driveways.

“We’ve been lucky they’ve been stopped by a tree or a pole and hasn’t lit someone’s house on fire,” he said.

Firefighters are also left at-risk by burning cars, with airbags at risk of exploding and vehicles which roll into streetlights a chance to electrocute firefighters trying to put out blazes. 

Central West Police District Inspector Greg Payne said police were determined to finish the spate of fires.

“As a district we’re committed to resolving these issues,” he said.

“We continue to implore people to assist by remaining vigilant with protection of property and reporting suspicious behaviour.”