According to reports, the Sacramento Fire Department said that local firefighters dealt with the first Tesla car fire. And to the confusion of firefighters, water alone is completely unable to put out the flames ignited by the batteries. And, before it caught fire, the Tesla Model S had been sitting in a scrapyard for three weeks, long enough for a conventional gas car to lose its vitality.
In a tweet that included a video of the fire, the Sacramento Fire Department said the Tesla was parked in a scrap yard when they were called to the scene, even though crews there had put out the flames at one point. But it still keeps returning.
In a Facebook post about the Tesla fire at the junkyard, the fire department wrote that firefighters spent “a lot of time, water and energy putting out” the flames. With the help of demolition yard workers, they turned the car over and began to try to extinguish the flames from the part of the car’s chassis, where the battery compartment that caused the fire was located. However, they wrote, “even after the flames were extinguished, the vehicle would still reignite due to residual heat”.
In fact, this approach is exactly what Tesla recommends first responders to do when its vehicle catches fire. The accident exposed a sensitive and worrisome issue with the popularity of electric vehicles: electric vehicles are indeed more environmentally friendly, but at the same time, the popularity of electric vehicles will also bring new challenges to emergency responders.
The fire department noted on Facebook that firefighters and demolition yard workers “dug a pit, put the car in it, and filled the pit with water,” and after flooding the battery compartment, they were finally able to put out the fire completely. The exact cause of the accident is not yet known.
While this is an extreme example, electric vehicle battery fires are not a new phenomenon. In 2019, at least three parked Tesla vehicles caught fire over the course of a month. And that doesn’t even touch on the many Teslas that caught fire while charging.
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