The National Transportation Safety Board says California firefighters had to douse a flaming battery in a Tesla Semi with about 50,000 gallons of water to put out flames after a crash.

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.

  • shaun@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    Flooding the batteries with water is the best way to put out a lithium-ion battery fire.

    • frezik@midwest.social
      0·
      2 months ago

      It isn’t.

      https://youtu.be/qgP7KkDesBo?si=XNb_yZYwA943t0lP

      Water seems to put it out for a bit, but the reaction is self-oxidizing and starts right back up again. That’s why it takes so much water; fire fighters keep dowsing it and then doing it again. Takes all day, and the whole thing burns away in the end.

      The way to do it is, if possible, tow it somewhere away from other things, keep the fire from spreading, and otherwise let it burn. For cars, there are fireproof blankets coming on the market to contain it. Semi-trucks are probably too big for that, though.

      • cm0002@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 months ago

        Maybe for smaller things, a regular car maybe.

        But by the time a suitable digging machine arrives on scene and digs a big enough hole for a semi it’d probably be faster to flood it with water. Not to mention what might be underneath the ground, so they’d also have to spend time determining if there’s any gas lines or whatever before they dig so they don’t make a much bigger problem

      • frezik@midwest.social
        0·
        2 months ago

        Lithium fires are self-oxidizing, so that won’t work. Burying it helps keep it from spreading, though.