A young man's recently purchased pickup truck went up in flames this morning at Yukon College.

An electrical overload in the wiring harness ignited the engine compartment, causing a fire in the hood of the 18-year-old truck.

"He was upset. He had just bought the vehicle,” said Whitehorse Fire Department platoon chief Don McKnight.

"The truck will be a write-off.”

The incident occurred at around 9:30 a.m. at a student residence behind the college.

The student had not run the 1995 Ford F-150 for several days, "but he'd been having some electrical issues and had changed some fuses,” McKnight said.

"Just a bad connection somewhere can cause enough resistance in the wiring to allow for the wiring to heat up to the point where it ignites the engine.

"Once the insulation is compromised and you get wires touching each other, you get a dead short,” he explained.

Firefighters had the blaze under control in five minutes and extinguished it shortly afterward, McKnight said.

College staff located the young man by putting out a call through classrooms this morning.