Image copyright Mary McCormack Image caption Firefighters were called in to extinguish the fire

A Tesla car driven by British TV director Michael Morris burst into flames in Los Angeles, his US actress wife has said.

Mary McCormack tweeted a dramatic video of the incident earlier this week.

"No accident, out of the blue, in traffic on Santa Monica Blvd. Thank you to the kind couple who flagged him down and told him to pull over," she wrote.

No-one was injured. Tesla said it was investigating "an extraordinarily unusual occurrence".

Tesla says its electric vehicles are less likely to catch fire than fuel-powered cars.

In her tweet, West Wing actress McCormack also wrote: "And thank god my three little girls weren't in the car with him (her husband)."

Firefighters were called in and the fire was soon extinguished.

McCormack later tweeted that the car "wasn't a Tesla with auto pilot or whatever. It was a normal Tesla."

A Tesla spokesperson told ABC News:

"We offer our support to local authorities and are glad our customer is safe. This is an extraordinarily unusual occurrence, and we are investigating the incident to find out what happened."

McCormack and Morris, a former director of London's Old Vic theatre and of the recent TV series 13 Reasons Why, have been married since 2003.