Zlatko had a pretty bad day. The 52-year-old Croatian was suffering through a cold Zagreb winter when he went to start his Opel Kadett. Nothing.

He said, “I couldn’t start the engine and realized it was frozen.”

So Zlatko decided he needed to heat up the car and “thaw out” the frozen engine. He grabbed old newspapers, stuffed them beneath the engine, and lit them on fire.

The wild part was, Zlatko then wandered away to let the fire do its work. I’m here to tell you, a pile of newspaper won’t burn for long. It’s unclear why he didn’t supervise it, but he was lucky not to.

While Zlatko was away, his Opel exploded in a fireball.

The DIYer told reporters, “Now my lovely car is destroyed.” But you know what they say, “you win or you learn.” And Zlatko has a theory on what went wrong: “Maybe I used too much paper.”

Zlatko, if you’re reading this, you might want to invest in a proper engine block heater for your next ride. And if you can’t get one, and your next car refuses to start in the cold, perhaps bring your battery inside, and plug it into a charger for a while. Then try again. Save the newspaper to read while you wait.