ELECTRIC VEHICLE DESTROYED IN FIRE
Multiple Washington County fire departments battled an electric vehicle fire for several hours on Saturday.
Around 5:30 p.m., the Meyersville and Washington Volunteer Fire Departments were called to a single-car accident without entrapment in the 14000 block of Whitman Road in Washington.
Firefighters arrived to find a Tesla had crashed off the roadway into a pasture and was actively on fire.
Units from the Brenham Fire Department and the Berlin and Chappell Hill Volunteer Fire Departments provided mutual aid to extinguish the fire and cool the batteries on the car. The fire was out around 9:15 p.m., and units were released from the scene at approximately 10:45 p.m.
The vehicle was destroyed, but no injuries were reported.
I used to deal with cells catching on fire all of the time when working out at the Gigafactory. I tested cells after receiving them from Panasonic delivered on AGV’s. We would dunk the cells in special dunk tanks filled with water and spray combusting cells with a particular fire extinguisher as the internal temp in the cells rose. It was basically a daily occurrence. The solution to the car fires is to simply cover the car with a special fire blanket. They are reusable and easy to carry around by fire department folks.
My understanding is that these occurrences are much less common in EVs than ICEs and usually give more time for a passenger to pull over and escape, so that’s good. But the temperature of the fire can be up to around 4,000 degrees. I’m seeing that there are new methods to dealing with them like the blanket you mentioned but I wonder what that heat does to buildings or pavement. Concrete, rebar, and moisture barriers can all be damaged at well under 1,000 degrees. These fires seem like a legitimate concern. Maybe the State needs a law that charges the cost of equipment-related emergency response or damage to roadways against a driver’s liability insurance. Then electric car owners would pay for it in their premiums.
Of course, we’ve all seen unrepaired fire-damaged patches of highway going into Houston and most of those are from truck fires. Seems like this would be good public policy no matter what kind of vehicle is on the road. Everybody should pay their fair share.
But also, fire departments should probably not bother trying to put out a fire like this. If it’s on dirt, there’s no fire hydrant nearby, and they don’t have the blanket then just contain it and let it burn. Please be sensible with the use of our resources.
It took FIVE fire departments nearly FOUR HOURS to extinguish??? DANG!! No thanks, Tesla
In the interest of cutting CO2 emissions, the governments of the world have not vetted the Tesla or other electric vehicles. There are many serious problems. The best vetting was following the hurricane that hit SW Florida. Dozens caught fires that were near impossible to extinguish. Tow truck drivers refused to move them. The fires were so hot they often caused extensive damage to other structures. There were many related problems. I have no problem with electric vehicles IF they are properly vetted and held to the same safety standards as those powered by petroleum. That includes homes next door to a home with a Tesla. One major problem is extinguishing the fires.
I ‘m wondering what’s the estimated wear and tear cost to these VFD’s equipment, foam supplies, fire apparatus fuel, must less a a wasted weekend afternoon to a lot of guys was used to putting out this “environment friendly vehicle”. In my day, 1 pumper and a tank of water would have done the job…. Green Energy isn’t so free to everyone……..
I’d like to know how many heavy metals and other junk were released into the air and absorbed into the groundwater? What a joke.