Most of the time, in action movies, we get to see a car (or vehicle) explosion. Usually it is from a nudge from another car and the nudged car flips, lands and explode or from a simple but accurate gunshot to the fuel tank. It looks as though cars get blown up very easily in movies. But, in reality, that is not the case.

In fact, you could shoot a bullet through the fuel tank and the car will not explode and also, we will never get to see the kind of explosions we usually see in movies when a car is driven off a cliff. So, how are these vehicular explosions are achieved in movies?

In this age of digitally made special effects, the widely preferred option when dealing with car explosions in movies is to do a real live explosion. Digitally made explosions still look very artificial and a real fireball looks simply stunning. This was explained by Drew Jiritano of DJFX, a professional New York special effects company.

But to film an effective explosion is not as easy as it seems.