Electric Car Fire

[Big_John]

So... This happened next door early this morning...   

The aftermath. This was a garage. 

About 6AM we were awakened by the neighbor pounding on our door yelling for us to call 911.  Flames were shooting out of the garage about 30 feet.  Long story short, the house is beyond repair.  Everyone got out, the main part of the house is still intact, but there is a lot of damage to the attic area and therefor the roof joists are burnt.  One is still in the hospital for smoke inhalation and going to be overnight for  observation.  He's about 80 and has been in bad health.  His partner is OK, he just stopped by to return the shoes I gave him this morning.  He's in his early 60's, but he's very shaken as he went through a house fire when he was a kid.  

Great neighbors....  This house has had 5 different sets of people living in it since I bought my place 40 years ago and  they were the best of the bunch. 

[Dave Van]

This will happen more and more often. They are discovering that these EV batteries are subject to damage just riding around in their vehicles. Bumps and under body damage can cause a 'run away cell' ' that will in the end catch fire.

When my brother in law bought a VOLT I told him never park inside. He laughed and then a few weeks later a BIG house burned to the ground near him in Charlotte when their VP:T caught fire.  The VOLT lived outside after that. 

Hope all were OK

[LennyB]

Had that happened to someone we know here recently. The car belonged to a relative who had passed away and it sat in the garage, plugged into power for a few months. Battery overheated from the charging and the car went up in flames. House was a total loss.

[Rodent]

OK, that looks like a Ford Escape to me which isn't an electric car. It may be a PHEV (or HEV, or ICE), but the battery pack isn't the size of an actual electric car if it is a hybrid, and it has a dead dinosaur juice storage device (gas tank) in any case.

Lots of things can catch a garage on fire, and the cars inside burn quite nicely when ignited by other sources.

My best wishes to your neighbors. Please post if there is a Go Fund Me for them.

[1930fordpickup]

That is sad and a hard thing to get over. I also hope they are both end up fine after the stay in the hospital.

[johnyrotten]

Very unfortunate.  House fires are one of those things that permanently change people.  I've seen a few of those e.v. fires in videos, it's insane how fast they they get out of control. I feel for those people,  it's two weeks till Christmas. 

[slusher]

No mattter what accidentally caused the fire I do pray they get back on their feet and get their home rebuilt. 

[Big_John]

8 hours ago, Rodent said:

OK, that looks like a Ford Escape to me which isn't an electric car. It may be a PHEV (or HEV, or ICE), but the battery pack isn't the size of an actual electric car if it is a hybrid, and it has a dead dinosaur juice storage device (gas tank) in any case.

Lots of things can catch a garage on fire, and the cars inside burn quite nicely when ignited by other sources.

My best wishes to your neighbors. Please post if there is a Go Fund Me for them.

I'm not familiar with all the variants.  I do know it was a Ford Escape and my neighbor told me that it was plugged into a charger in his garage when the fire happened.  It was also real quiet when I heard him driving by, so I assumed it was a full electric.  

I looked it up and I now understand it was a "plug in" hybrid which means PHEV.  Had to look up what the acronym PHEV too...  LOL....  That's how little I know (or care) about them.

That explains a couple things.  I had read, and talking to firefighter friends,  that the electric cars did not extinguish very easily, if at all.  My step son's girlfriend, a Scranton, PA firefighter, told me that there basically is no extinguishing them... They knocked down the fire pretty fast, although the fire was obviously very intense.  I expected the car to be melted rather than looking like a typical burnt car. 

It also makes me wonder if the charger was "Level 1" which is a simple charger that plugs into the exiting 110 outlet and apparently comes with the car.  The same builder built our house in the late 50's and my garage wiring was marginal, so that may have been a factor. 

This was a very intense fire though....   The sheriffs  had us leave our house and go sit in our car in our other neighbor's driveway in case it spread.  It was pouring rain, so I think that helped it not involve our house and may have kept it from becoming much worse.  

 

 

 

[stitchdup]

the main problem with electric car fires is water wont put them out and since the batteries are mstly sealed the correct extinguishing products dont get where they need to go. on this side of the pnd they get put in sealed containers once extinguished as they often relight hours or days later. if the manufacurers actually finished designing and testing instead of rushing to the market this would be less of an issue. you'd think the pinto would have taught them some lessons but since everything is being treated as tech we get unfinished products instead but hey its got wifi and thats what matters right?

[Ace-Garageguy]

25 minutes ago, stitchdup said:

...if the manufacurers actually finished designing and testing instead of rushing to the market this would be less of an issue. you'd think the pinto would have taught them some lessons but since everything is being treated as tech we get unfinished products instead but hey its got wifi and thats what matters right?

Lotsa truth right there.

And the push in the engineering community to go straight from simulation to production with no physical prototyping and testing phase will only make things worse.

[Big_John]

17 minutes ago, stitchdup said:

the main problem with electric car fires is water wont put them out and since the batteries are mstly sealed the correct extinguishing products dont get where they need to go. on this side of the pnd they get put in sealed containers once extinguished as they often relight hours or days later. if the manufacurers actually finished designing and testing instead of rushing to the market this would be less of an issue. you'd think the pinto would have taught them some lessons but since everything is being treated as tech we get unfinished products instead but hey its got wifi and thats what matters right?

I expected to see someone "babysitting" afterwards to be sure nothing rekindled another fire, but there wasn't.  That could also be because these were our great volunteer firemen that had real jobs to  get to when they were done.  (emphasis on great)

I don't want to/won't get political about this, but the reality is that pressure to produce these cars is pretty high, so you can figure corners are going to be cut.  On the  other side of  the coin, you  can't predict every "real world" scenario either and hopefully, problems will get identified and  solved.  It  really comes down to us being the  lab rats for progress. 

[Mike 1017]

If anyone parks their EV in their garage. Make sure that your house and auto insurance will cover this disaster. If it happens to you.

Mike

[Ace-Garageguy]

18 minutes ago, Mike 1017 said:

If anyone parks their EV in their garage. Make sure that your house and auto insurance will cover this disaster. If it happens to you.

This is good advice. 

Insurers are raising rates on EVs because of their non-economically-viable-repairability after even light crashes.  https://www.claimsjournal.com/news/national/2024/12/09/327691.htm 

Parking garages are beginning to ban them because of the propensity to catch fire.

Sure, ICs will burn too, but they don't spontaneously ignite.

Call your insurance provider ASAP, because if your policy doesn't SPECIFICALLY cover this unfortunate circumstance, you're not covered, period.

And don't take some mumbled generalities from an agent, either.

GET THE COVERAGE DEFINED AND EXPLAINED IN WRITING.

Edited December 12, 2024 by Ace-Garageguy

[Mike C]

I once saw some video online of a Mercedes Benz EV in a parking garage go up in flames.

[Big_John]

Pics taken by the fire department.  The first was taken right in front of my house and before  the trucks came.  5 different volunteer fire departments were there. 

[1930fordpickup]

Another thing is Rodents love to chew on wires. How do the manufactures stop that easily.  Happened to me and my truck was parked outside. Just caused a miss on my truck. 

[Ace-Garageguy]

4 minutes ago, 1930fordpickup said:

Another thing is Rodents love to chew on wires. How do the manufactures stop that easily.  Happened to me and my truck was parked outside. Just caused a miss on my truck. 

And another thing that's apparently not widely known is that "sealed" battery packs may be compromised by running over road hazards, speed bumps, etc. 

If the seal is broken, ingress of water from driving through a puddle an IC car would have no problem with can cause an internal short resulting in fire.

AND...multiple EV fires resulted from salt-water ingress when the vehicles were left parked in flooding conditions during recent weather events.

[NYLIBUD]

Wow,this is insane.Prayers 🙏 for everyone’s good health.This is why I would NEVER buy an EV.

[JollySipper]

One of the neighbors here has a Leaf....... She leaves it plugged in day and night, while it's raining even! I would not want to pay her electric bill.........

 

[Big_John]

25 minutes ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

And another thing that's apparently not widely known is that "sealed" battery packs may be compromised by running over road hazards, speed bumps, etc. 

If the seal is broken, ingress of water from driving through a puddle an IC car would have no problem with can cause an internal short resulting in fire.

AND...multiple EV fires resulted from salt-water ingress when the vehicles were left parked in flooding conditions during recent weather events.

With the road salt that they spread around here all winter, I can't help but wonder about  how  that affects the EV's batteries.   

[stitchdup]

after the flooding over here and in florida, ev fires were a big issue. then theres the fires after accidents or whatever. it seems the safest place for the battery might be strapped in the seat beside you cos at least thats safety tested. its almost like evs are laughing at hydrogen, lol

[1930fordpickup]

A friends non EV Chevy started on fire while the battery was charging over night.  It can happen to anything but more common with EVs. 

[Can-Con]

Electric car fires have been an ongoing problem for a while now.

[dmthamade]

Well, something to think about. We have customers with EVs that stay overnight or longer, and we do work for 2 bodyshops, sometimes EVs that have been in accidents. Can't say if we've ever thought about the possibility of something going bad...

 

Don

[dmthamade]

23 hours ago, Big_John said:

With the road salt that they spread around here all winter, I can't help but wonder about  how  that affects the EV's batteries.   

In Toronto Canada, they recently banned Electric bycycles form the transit system(subways) in winter due to the batteries on some not being sealed from salt/enviromental concerns, have had fires on the underground trains due to the batteries catching fire.

 

Don