A viral video is showing exactly why dry grass and hot car exhaust are a disaster waiting to happen, after a driver accidentally sparked a rapidly spreading fire simply by backing into a parking space.

The clip, originally shared on TikTok before exploding across social media, shows a vehicle reversing into a spot next to a patch of tall, dry grass. At first everything looks completely normal, just another person parking their car like any ordinary day.

Then suddenly small flames appear underneath the rear of the vehicle.

Within seconds the dry vegetation ignites and the fire begins spreading aggressively through the grass as thick black smoke pours into the air. The situation escalates unbelievably fast, turning what looked like a harmless parking maneuver into a full-blown parking lot inferno.

The footage captures nearby drivers and bystanders realizing what’s happening almost in real time as the flames grow larger and begin threatening multiple parked vehicles nearby.

The scariest part of the video is how quickly everything spirals out of control. There’s almost no warning. One second the car is parked, the next second the entire edge of the lot looks like a wildfire scene.

According to viewers discussing the footage online, the blaze was likely sparked by extreme heat coming from the vehicle’s exhaust system or catalytic converter, both of which can reach temperatures hot enough to ignite dry vegetation underneath or behind a parked vehicle.

And apparently this happens more often than most people realize.