Actress Mary McCormack has said that her husband's Tesla Model S caught fire while he was driving in the Los Angeles area.

'This is what happened to my husband and his car today,' McCormack wrote on Twitter Friday, posting a shocking video of a Model S spewing flames from the front driver's side front wheel well.

'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. And thank god my three little girls weren’t in the car with him,' continued McCormack, best known from The West Wing and Murder One.

It is unclear who shot the video McCormack posted. She has been married to director Michael Morris since 2003.

A Tesla spokesperson told DailyMail.com that the company is investigating the incident, and insists that the company's cars are far less likely to catch fire than gas vehicles.

The shocking video shows a Model S spewing flames from the front driver's side wheel well

Mary McCormack (left) has been married to director Michael Morris (right) since 2003

'We offer our support to local authorities and are glad our customer is safe,' the spokesperson said in a statement.

'This is an extraordinarily unusual occurrence, and we are investigating the incident to find out what happened.'

The company claims that its vehicles are at least 10 times less likely than a gas car to catch fire, citing data from the National Fire Protection Association and US Federal Highway Administration.

Tesla said that its battery packs are engineered with safety measures that ensure fires are rare, and that when they do occur, spread more slowly than in a gas vehicle and give occupants a chance to evacuate.

McCormack said the Model S caught fire while her husband was driving on Friday

McCormack played Deputy National Security Adviser Kate Harper in the West Wing from 2004 to 2006

More recently McCormack (right) starred in the ABC legal drama For The People

Tesla founder Elon Musk (above) has blasted press coverage of safety incidents with his cars as unfair and melodramatic, insisting his company has been unfairly singled out

Tesla has come under scrutiny following crashes while its vehicles were in the 'Autopilot' semi-autonomous mode, as well as a handful of battery fires following crashes.

However, Tesla founder Elon Musk has blasted press coverage of such incidents as unfair and melodramatic, insisting his company has been unfairly singled out.

Not long after complaining about coverage of Tesla crashes in the press, Musk announced plans to launch a ratings site that would critique publications and individual journalists.

'It’s super messed up that a Tesla crash resulting in a broken ankle is front page news and the ~40,000 people who died in US auto accidents alone in past year get almost no coverage,' he wrote in a tweet last month.