A CAR caught fire in the early hours of today while parked outside a house.

A man raised the alarm after spotting smoke coming from the front of his wife’s Citroen C4 parked in a layby outside their home in Barham Close, Gosport, at 12.26am.

Crews from Gosport fire station discovered the fire was already out by the time they arrived.

The heat caused damage to the passenger side of the vehicle.

Station watch manager Steve Bint put the cause of the fire down to a suspected electrical fault.