Richard Bacon's car burst into flames with kids inside

ichard Bacon was left horrified when his car suddenly caught fire while he was driving his kids home.

The 44-year-old presenter - who has Ivy, six, and Arthur, eight, with wife Rebecca McFarlane - was driving home from Malibu in Los Angeles when his Land Rover Discovery started to make a disturbing noise before it burst into flames.

Sharing a video of the blazing car on Twitter, he wrote: "I guess we\'re gonna need a lift home.

"Thanks to the lovely Santa Monica fire department and the delightful people on the PCH [Pacific Coast Highway] who stopped to help."

The former \'Blue Peter\' presenter was able to get his family out of the car before it went up in flames, but they were forced to run in case the vehicle exploded.

He continued: "The car started making a funny noise as we drove home from Malibu. Then dramatically caught fire.

"Because we\'ve seen a lot of films we moved back thinking it might explode. It didn\'t. Apparently that\'s just a movie thing."

Luckily, nobody was hurt and the fire department rushed to the scene and were able to put out the blaze.

He added: "All four of us were in there. Everyone fine and happy. May not go with Land Rover next time."

The television star first rose to fame on \'Blue Peter\' in 1997 but was stripped of his badge a year later when he was pictured taking cocaine.

He recently had to stop Alexa telling his children about his past drug taking, after they asked the virtual assistant about their dad.

Richard explained: "I am sitting in a room in my house in Los Angeles and there is one of those Amazon Alexas next to me and my kids said, \'Oh Alexa, who is Richard Bacon?\'

"And it comes up straight away, \'Richard Bacon is an English television presenter. He was fired from Blue Peter in 1998 for taking...\'. I jumped in and said, \'Alexa stop. Stop\'.

"They said, \'What are you saying stop for? Why did you get fired?\' And then they asked again. And so it is right there at the surface even though it was 21 years ago."