It took 50,000 gallons of water to put out Tesla Semi fire in California, US agency says - 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.

FILE - A Tesla logo is shown on Feb. 27, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson, File)

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.

The agency also found that the truck was not operating on one of Tesla’s partially automated driving systems at the time of the crash, the report said. The systems weren’t operational and “could not be engaged,” according to the agency.

The crash happened about 3:13 a.m. as the tractor-trailer was being driven by a Tesla employee from Livermore, California, to a Tesla facility in Sparks, Nevada. The Semi left the road while going around a curve to the right and hit a tree, the report said. It went down a slope and came to rest against several trees. The driver was not hurt.

After the crash, the Semi’s lithium-ion battery ignited. Firefighters used water to put out flames and keep the batteries cool. The freeway was closed for about 15 hours as firefighters made sure the batteries were cool enough to recover the truck.

Authorities took the truck to an open-air facility and monitored it for 24 hours. The battery did not reignite.

The NTSB said all aspects of the crash are under investigation as it determines the cause. The agency said it intends to issue safety recommendations to prevent similar incidents.

A message was left Thursday seeking comment from Tesla, which is based in Austin, Texas.

After an investigation that ended in 2021, the NTSB determined that high-voltage electric vehicle battery fires pose risks to first responders and that guidelines from manufacturers about how to deal with them were inadequate.

The agency, which has no enforcement powers and can only make recommendations, called for manufacturers to write vehicle-specific response guides for fighting battery fires and limiting chemical thermal runaway and reignition. The guidelines also should include information on how to safely store vehicles with damaged lithium-ion batteries, the agency said.

Tesla began delivering the electric Semis in December of 2022, more than three years after CEO Elon Musk said his company would start making the trucks. Musk has said the Semi has a range per charge of 500 miles (800 kilometers) when pulling an 82,000-pound (37,000-kilo) load.

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[NoSpiceLife]

aren't lithium-ion battery fires meant to be extinguished with one of the following:
CO2, powder graphite, ABC dry chemical or sodium carbonate extinguishers.. or Dry chemical class B or C extinguishers.

There's a whole website that lists all the EVs currently in the US, a lot of them have 'rescue' procedures, which includes how they should be jacked up/where chains can sit/what to do when and at what stage/etc., what's interesting is how different they are to each other.

Honestly it's any wonder that response teams in other countries, have been told to walk away and come back when it's finished burning, essentially saying that if people can't get themselves out...

Pretty sure this is it Found it: Energy Security Agency: Emergency Response Guides

This is another one I found when looking for the above.
NFPA Emergency Response

 

[AnotherPleb]

I already see it now - push everyone to evs and then say they're too dangerous after niggers crash enough of them to cause a wave of horrifying car fires that refuse to be doused.

Better get in the pod pleb, you're clearly not responsible enough for cars.

 

[Ser Prize]

The other thing that worries me about this EV battery bullshit is that it really doesn't take much to turn it into a nasty improvised weapon. An ICE machine at worst will simply detonate and you can put it out with enough water. EV in the other hand is an arsonist' wet dream.

Forcing people you hate to drive EVs that you can probably remotely detonate strikes me as more of a feature than a bug.

 

[666NASTYFUCKINGFREAK666]

fire retardant? lol fire retard. i love the word retard

 

[anklyscr]

The other thing that worries me about this EV battery bullshit is that it really doesn't take much to turn it into a nasty improvised weapon. An ICE machine at worst will simply detonate and you can put it out with enough water. EV in the other hand is an arsonist' wet dream.

This is what amuses me with ev proponents. tHerEs lESS MoVINg parts.

No shit. But rather than having 1000 mostly inert parts in my engine and 50 litres of fuel , you’ve now got a battery pack with 6000+ parts all of which can start a fire just existing.

Brilliant.

 

[ZazietheBeast]

Forcing people you hate to drive EVs that you can probably remotely detonate strikes me as more of a feature than a bug.

And knowing how insurgents work, I'm certain they've taken notice of that particular quirk with EVs.

This is what amuses me with ev proponents. tHerEs lESS MoVINg parts.

No shit. But rather than having 1000 mostly inert parts in my engine and 50 litres of fuel , you’ve now got a battery pack with 6000+ parts all of which can start a fire just existing.

Brilliant.

The proponents tend to be the types who'd let Google and Reddit dictate how they think by over-relying on that piece of tech. So what happens when you rely on one source for all your information? You become Klaus' lapdog.

I already see it now - push everyone to evs and then say they're too dangerous after niggers crash enough of them to cause a wave of horrifying car fires that refuse to be doused.

Better get in the pod pleb, you're clearly not responsible enough for cars.

Hegelian dialectics at its finest. Especially when you remember the 2030 plan of reducing global carbon. AKA the plebs. Hence eat ze bugs since that shit will make you sick.

 

[TowinKarz]

The "left the road on a curve and collided with trees" description means excessive speed.

Now, was it from the driver not paying attention? Or the truck having a new and interesting failure mode? Remains to be seen, apparently.

Since this is Tesla, wouldn't surprise me if the employee who crashed doesn't even have a CDL and had no idea how to handle a truck.

But it ALSO wouldn't surprise me if the computer lost connection to the "brakes" server.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

And before anyone starts wagging around the 'Elon Musk just can't build EVs' line, consider how Rivian's vehicles have an identical issue.

It's a core problem with having xbawkshueg lithium batteries. A small battery fire is bad, but the scaling issue just makes things so much worse.

 

[Particle Bored]

Authorities took the truck to an open-air facility and monitored it for 24 hours.

You thought 15 hours of firefighter pay and 50000 gallons was the only cost to this fire? Noooooo taxpayer child...

 

[Snekposter]

@ZazietheBeast You went with the terrorist and not the bomb truck?

Sorry, no tracking numbers.

 

[LurkTrawl]

California firefighters had to douse a flaming battery in a Tesla Semi with about 50,000 gallons (190,000 liters) of water

Water on a metal fire? No shit.

There's literally no other option. Lithium battery fires provide their own oxidizer, they'd burn in literal space in some conditions. The water takes heat away, it can't really directly put out the fire. Foam or co2 would be worse.

Sand? They didn't have sand?

 

[Vecr]

Sand? They didn't have sand?

They need to transport it away, not build a new hill. The point of the water is to conduct heat away and generally cool down the reactions in the battery. If you try to use foam instead it can re-ignite while you're transporting it or in whatever lot you put it in afterwards. The truck is toast, but you still can't safely crush it because the battery is still there (it'll probably go on fire again).

 

[JackoVerde]

And yet this is supposed to be better for the environment, kek. I thought water was a precious commodity. "Water is life," right?

Well drinkable water, do you need that to douse a fire?

 

[Vecr]

Well drinkable water, do you need that to douse a fire?

In the US they use it quite often. You could try using salt water in some places, but usually there's a water tower filled with drinking water that keeps the pressure up for firefighting, so you'd have to duplicate the infrastructure and deal with the salt corrosion.

If they don't use drinking water, they generally have to set up pumps and pump water from a river/stream or a pond.

 

[Bonesjones]

EV batteries are basically just a big block of metal full of lithium ion cells, think a big sheet of AAA batteries. They start cooking off individually and catching fire. You spray the car with water to keep each individual cell from cooking off the ones around them. Since you otherwise have to wait for every single one to burn out before you can transport it. This can take days.

 

[Snekposter]

For those unaware of chemistry, the lighter you get and the further to the edges you get (minus the far right side which is the noble gases), the more reactive you get. As you can no doubt guess given its presence on the far left and only a little heavier than helium, lithium reacts with well... everything, and very well. You can't even store it surrounded by nitrogen gas because it will react with that.

So, on the one hand, that extreme reactivity means its great for energy storage because it loves to do kinky shit with its one electron. On the other hand, anything that loves to do kinky shit with electrons, especially if it has just one of them, has no problems reacting with anything else, including in reduction-oxidization reactions, which are known colloquially as fires. There is unironically no good way to put one of these out because of how reactive the lithium is. At least it isn't fluorine or sodium that's getting used, which is a very small consolation.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

What about using a dozer? It was already off the road right so get a digger and a dozer, make a hole and push the thing into it then cover in dirt and leave to burn itself out.

 

[Snekposter]

What about using a dozer? It was already off the road right so get a digger and a dozer, make a hole and push the thing into it then cover in dirt and leave to burn itself out.

You know what happens when you bury hot coals and then expose them back to air?

Same thing happens to flaming batteries when you bury them and then expose them back to air. How long are you going to wait for them to finish cooling down, especially since they're going to keep on igniting as a result of their self-oxidizing nature? And then you still have to dig the car out afterwards, except now its a fucked-up mess from burning itself out underground and you need to make sure all the pieces get properly recovered so you avoid soil contamination.