this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2024
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It took 50,000 gallons of water to put out Tesla Semi fire in California, US agency says (apnews.com)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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California firefighters had to douse a flaming battery in a Tesla Semi with about 50,000 gallons (190,000 liters) of water to extinguish flames after a crash, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday.

In addition to the huge amount of water, firefighters used an aircraft to drop fire retardant on the “immediate area” of the electric truck as a precautionary measure, the agency said in a preliminary report.

Firefighters said previously that the battery reached temperatures of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (540 Celsius) while it was in flames.

The NTSB sent investigators to the Aug. 19 crash along Interstate 80 near Emigrant Gap, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northeast of Sacramento. The agency said it would look into fire risks posed by the truck’s large lithium-ion battery.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Not who you responded to, but that's an interesting source. I'm intrigued by a textile company claiming to be experts in lithium ion fires.

It sounds more like options for preventing a fire to spread. It's also including CO2 extinguishers under "foam" which they very much aren't, making me doubt the rest of their blog post.

Extinguishing fires can work largely in two different ways. Either by smothering a fire or by cooling a fuel below it's flash point. Quite often they put out a fire by doing both. A fire that contains an oxidizer cannot be smothered, but smothering can help prevent other materials in a vehicle from being able to burn along with the batteries. Cooling down a large, vehicle sized lithium ion fires takes an incredible amount of water. However, the cells themselves contain so much energy that their failure produces more thermal energy than water is able to remove.

Is water the best to put out large EV fires? Nope.

Is water good at preventing fires from spreading? Yep.

Is water easily accessible and carried on every fire truck and engine and available through hydrants? Also yep.

A lot of agencies are including car sized fire blankets as well that help smother the fire some and make burnt/burning EVs safer for tow trucks to move to a safe locations where they can be left to burn out. Sometimes for over a month! You might see fire engines literally escorting tow trucks because even with the blanket and being doused with tens of thousands of gallons, it's still at risk of reigniting during transport.

The other big issue that agencies are facing with EV fires is that the water used to suppress these fires essentially becomes hazmat. So there are issues with letting it just run off into the storm system or the environment.