A startled Jeff Ford ran out the front of his McKenzie Street house at 3.30am to find his Ford XE Falcon in flames.

Heat from the car fire had shattered his bedroom window, causing the bang.

His window shutter also caught on fire and his vertical blinds melted.

“When I saw it, I just started yelling out: ‘help, help’,” Mr Ford said.

“I grabbed a hose to save my house but I could’ve been electrocuted because I was standing barefoot in water with a powerline right above me.”

He said the fire was obviously deliberate because an accelerant had been used to light it.

He said the vandals involved were mongrels who did not care.

“They’d just burn you out and kill you,” he said.

Damage from the fire left Mr Ford and his wife, Trish, with nowhere to sleep last night.

He said while he was angry he had lost his car, he was more upset that the attack could have killed him and his wife.

“It would’ve killed us, I reckon,” he said.

If the fire had caught on the curtains, the house would have gone up and they could have lost their lives and the house.

He said he had never had any trouble in the 40 years the couple have lived in the house.

The fire has left the couple in shock and feeling unsafe.

It was the last thing they needed as they dealt with other stresses in their lives.

Mr Ford said the fire showed why Lavington needed its own police station.

He hoped Albury police would find out who was responsible but he did not hold out much hope because there was not much evidence.

He said such crime must stop.

“They probably watched it go up in flames from down the road,” he said.

Fire Rescue NSW station officer Alex Marschall said the car was destroyed. He said the Fords were lucky not to lose their house.

“The car was maliciously set on fire and so many dangerous things could have happened as a result,” he said.

“The crime has left the couple in shock.”

Mr Marschall said he did not know whether another car fire, in Nowra Street in North Albury, at 6.30am was linked to the blaze.