Hazmat Crews Fight Electric Truck Battery Fire That Closes California’s I-80

[Elderberry]

Legal Insurrection by Leslie Eastman 8/21/2024

Due to the toxic fumes and intense heat, the evacuation perimeter was one-half mile and firefighters dumped 40,000 gallons on the fire…that was still burning over 8 hours later.

There is an interesting new entry for my series on electric vehicle realities.

As I have noted, many challenges are associated with fighting lithium/lithium-ion battery fires. The lithium is water reactive, yet water is often the only fire-fighting option in large enough quantities to fight the blaze. The materials burn at very high temperatures and are prone to re-igniting, which is why it took the firefighters in Texas 30,000 gallons of water and four hours to extinguish one blaze.

In my most recent report on the issue, a San Diego area warehouse collection of batteries burned for nearly a week before firefighters began to control the fire. Even then, the fire continued to smolder for weeks.

Now, an electric big-rig truck fire forced hazmat crews to shut down both directions of Interstate 80 in Northern California’s Sierra Nevada as authorities battled the intense heat and toxicity from the vehicle’s batteries.

    The crash occurred around 3:15 a.m. near Emigrant Gap where an electric vehicle traveling eastbound at the Laing Road offramp crashed onto the right shoulder and into trees, according to the California Highway Patrol’s incident log.

    Officer Jason Lyman, a spokesman for the CHP’s Gold Run office, said that only one vehicle was involved and that the driver was not injured. Lyman said the white Tesla Semi truck was without a trailer when it was headed uphill west of Yuba Gap. Investigators were still trying to piece together what led the Tesla to leave the roadway, he said.

More: https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/08/hazmat-crews-fight-electric-truck-battery-fire-that-closes-californias-i-80/

[Smokin Joe]

I have to ask. With 40,000 gallons of water used to fight the fire, aside from steam conversion, what becomes of the ~40,000 gallons of runoff? How toxic is that water, and what's in it?

Clinical dosages of Lithium, for treatment of bipolar disease, according to the Mayo Clinic range from 300 to 1200 milligrams daily https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/lithium-oral-route/description/drg-20064603 but that is in a clinical setting. Toxicity, and the effects, in that instance is understood: https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002667.htm

We just don't know what effect, if any, that runoff will have on human and other downstream consumers, and with increasing likelihood of poorly disposed of vehicles and batteries, as well as more fires, it would be good to understand any risk.

[catfish1957]

Don't know which part of I-80 in CA this occured, but those 100 miles within Truckee are white knuckle enough without a Li Truck Battery fire.

[PeteS in CA]

Don't know which part of I-80 in CA this occured, but those 100 miles within Truckee are white knuckle enough without a Li Truck Battery fire.

Highway maintenance has been given short shrift by CalTrans for about 5 decades. Vehicle registration and gas tax $$ is largely diverted from highway building and maintenance into "mass transit" (thank you Adriana GiantTurkey!) and shoring up the general fund. I-80 in the Sierras is in sad shape. The border between CA and NV can be identified by the sound from your vehicle's tires.

[catfish1957]

Highway maintenance has been given short shrift by CalTrans for about 5 decades. Vehicle registration and gas tax $$ is largely diverted from highway building and maintenance into "mass transit" (thank you Adriana GiantTurkey!) and shoring up the general fund. I-80 in the Sierras is in sad shape. The border between CA and NV can be identified by the sound from your vehicle's tires.

When we went out there last year, that sure was evident.   One stretch off I-80 to get to our kid's location took 3 hours for a 50 mile stretch of road construction.

 Some of the most beautiful scenery in the country though. 

[DefiantMassRINO]

I'm always amazed how much better New Hampshire's highways are, compared to Mass.  Same region, same climate, but different results.

The problem with maintenace is that there's no ribbon cutting photo-op.

I think Mass Department of Transporation's maintenance plan is to let infrastructure deteriorate to a crisis point so they can gladhand the Feds for emergency funds.

My electric utility's maintenance plan is to replace transformers as they explode.

Maintenance is not nearly as sexy as a decades-long boondogle to build a leaky tunnels that kill people (Boston's Big Dig).

[catfish1957]

I'm always amazed how much better New Hampshire's highways are, compared to Mass.  Same region, same climate, but different results.

.

Same as between TX and Louisiana.  Except everyone knows why.  Helluva lot more government corruption in NOLA and Baton Rouge, than Austin, Houston, and Dallas.

[PeteS in CA]

When we went out there last year, that sure was evident.   One stretch off I-80 to get to our kid's location took 3 hours for a 50 mile stretch of road construction.

 Some of the most beautiful scenery in the country though.

The Sierras are beautiful, though SR1 along the Sonoma-Mendocino coast are more to my taste. The last time I drove I-80 into Nevada was 2007 during a trip to NE Kansas. It was awful then, and I asked a friend a few weeks ago who had just driven through there, and he said it was in pretty bad shape. That area of I-80 is high traffic, gets lots of snow in winter, and studded tires and snow chains are hard on the pavement, but maintenance isn't being done timely and adequately.

Apparently there have been calls for the State of California to back off its mandates for electric trucks. The water used to put out that one fire probably wiped out more than a year of the Emigrant Gap - Yuba Gap area residents' water savings (maybe several years!).

I have to ask. With 40,000 gallons of water used to fight the fire, aside from steam conversion, what becomes of the ~40,000 gallons of runoff? How toxic is that water, and what's in it?

Clinical dosages of Lithium, for treatment of bipolar disease, according to the Mayo Clinic range from 300 to 1200 milligrams daily https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/lithium-oral-route/description/drg-20064603 but that is in a clinical setting. Toxicity, and the effects, in that instance is understood: https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002667.htm

We just don't know what effect, if any, that runoff will have on human and other downstream consumers, and with increasing likelihood of poorly disposed of vehicles and batteries, as well as more fires, it would be good to understand any risk.

I doubt that there has been much serious research into this question, if any.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

When an EV fire begins in a downtown parking garage and burns up the other cars and injures people in the office building over it, it will be something to behold.

Wait - it has already happened

Mercedes-Benz EV Explodes In Parking Garage Sending 23 To Hospital
A Mercedes-Benz EQE that was parked in a parking garage in Incheon, South Korea burst into flames recently with no apparent cause. The vehicle was not charging at the time that it caught fire. The resulting blaze forced an evacuation of the building and sent over 20 people to the hospital due to smoke inhalation.

The fire was caught in its early stages on a CCTV camera inside the garage. It initially looked like white smoke creeping from under the car and gradually flowing around the other vehicles parked on either side of the EQE. The trickle of smoke quickly grew to engulf the vehicle before the explosion. According to Inside EVs, the fire damaged a total of 140 cars in the garage with at least 70 suffering significant damage from the incident.

Electric Vehicle Fires Are A Challenge To Extinguish
Vehicle fires can happen in any vehicle, but when that vehicle is electric, whether a Mercedes or a Tesla Model S, putting it out can be tricky. They burn much hotter than gas vehicles, reaching temperatures of up to 5,000° F compared to 1,500°F for a gas vehicle fire, which makes it hard for firefighters to get close. These fires also take much more water to put out, increasing the amount of time that they burn and the potential for damage to surrounding objects.

n this case, the fire was so strong that it impacted the electric grid of both the apartment building where it was located and the entire apartment complex. A total of 103 people were initially evacuated from the building and the fire is now out. There were nearly 500 households without power or water five days after the fire was extinguished.

https://youtu.be/U15rbNDnWr8
https://carbuzz.com/mercedes-benz-ev-explodes-23-sent-to-hospital/

This prompted a new regulation banning EVs in garages.