A car engine burst into flames at the Leicester Forest East service station.
Firefighters from Southern and western stations were called out to the incident on the northbound side of the M1 service station at 7.38pm yesterday.
A member of the public had started to tackle the flames with a fire extinguisher.
The firefighters damped down the vehicle.
The fire, which was due to a mechanical fault, had caused 10 percent damage to the engine compartment.
