An electrical fault caused the blaze that killed Cape Town toddler Vanilla Nurse, forensics expert David Klatzow said on Monday.
Vanilla, the daughter of satirist Justin Nurse, died of burns after the family car caught fire last week.
Klatzow said there had been a fault in the window winder switches of the vehicle, a Honda Jazz.
Though the car was taken to a Honda workshop, it could not be fixed immediately, as parts had to be ordered.
”That developed into an outright major overheating of the circuit board and set alight the plastic alongside,” Klatzow said.
The fire broke out in the right-hand door of the car, he said.
He had notified Honda about his finding and the company had been ”very grateful for the openness”.
Honda South Africa spokesperson Joline Dabrowski said the company was aware that Klatzow had released findings to the media.
It had asked him for a written copy of his report, and would comment after that.
Nurse’s wife Camilla had been shopping for groceries for Vanilla’s second birthday party, and was carrying bags into the house when the fire broke out.
Vanilla was still strapped into a car seat.
Her mother was burned as she attempted to free the child, who was dead when she arrived at hospital.
The Nurses gathered with friends and relatives to mark what would have been her second birthday on a family farm near Stellenbosch on Sunday. — Sapa