White Tesla Model S bursts into flames after sitting in California wrecking yard for THREE weeks: Firefighters had to submerge vehicle in a pit to extinguish its battery

UK Daily Mail ^ | 06/22/2022 | JOSEPH MICHALITSIANOS

[DFG]

A white Tesla Model S spontaneously burst into flames in a Rancho Cordova, California wrecking yard after the car had spent weeks sitting there after a collision.

The Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District said that firefighters arrived at the wrecking yard to find the Tesla fully engulfed in flames. Each time the firefighters attempted to extinguish the flames, the Tesla's battery would reignite the fire.

The fire department posted an Instagram video of the ordeal, saying that even when firefighters moved the Tesla onto it's side to spray the battery directly, the car would burst into flames again 'due to the residual heat.'

Eventually, the firefighters dug a pit near the Tesla and moved the burning car into it and then filled the pit with water, 'effectively submerging the battery compartment.'

The technique worked, and the fire department was able to put out the fire with no injuries and 4,500 gallons of water used - about the same amount of water used for a building fire.

Fires generated from electric vehicles can be especially hazardous, as they generate over 100 organic chemicals including some potentially fatal toxic gasses like carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide.

Capt. Parker Wilbourn, a spokesperson for the fire department, told the Washington Post that the Tesla fire burned hotter than 3,000 degrees.

[Spktyr]

Marginally, but if it’s an electrical fire it sucks either way.

[mowowie]

White is the free color..

[mowowie]

54 years old and the world has gone frigging retarded...

[Fresh Wind]

FYI, normal internal combustion cars have been hit, taken to a tow yard and burst into flames some time later too.

Yes, but they don't have to be shoved into water-filled pits to extinguish the fires. And they don't generally re-ignite multiple times.

[catnipman]

“Or maybe we need to discharge them after an accident.”

not generally possible with a damaged tesla battery: liquid cooling system kaput, discharge-control circuitry kaput ... any battery discharge generates waste heat, so any attempt to deliberately discharge a damaged tesla battery that contains a significant charge is likely to overheat it and trigger a run-away discharge/heat event that produces thousands of degrees of heat ...

[Spktyr]

The latter isn’t true in the case of electrical fires, I’ve seen that myself. Especially in the cases of internal combustion cars that have a hard to access battery - such as some BMWs and Chrysler - they’ll continue to arc, burn and reignite until the battery can be disconnected or the fire melts the power cables.

[Fresh Wind]

Yeah, but once you disconnect the battery of a conventional vehicle, the problem should be over.

Even if you somehow manage to disconnect the EV battery (400-900 volts) that won’t stop the fire if it’s the battery itself that is burning. The only way to deal with them is to keep them cool by pouring water on them until they settle down.

https://www.firehouse.com/operations-training/article/21255066/university-of-extrication-electric-vehicle-fire-suppression

[Spktyr]

Once the battery’s involved, yes. I’m pointing out that there are ICE cars that can ignite well after a crash and be a huge pain to extinguish too so it’s not entirely a BEV problem.