The question of just how much water it takes to extinguish a fire in an electric vehicle (EV) battery has recently been addressed following a Tesla Model S fire that occurred on Eastbound Highway 50 in California over the weekend. According to the Sacramento authorities, the vehicle spontaneously caught fire, with no reported injuries. However, it did take a substantial amount of water, approximately 6,000 gallons, to put out the fire as the battery cells continued to combust during the incident.
Despite the fact that Tesla closed its media relations division in 2020, Sacramento fire authorities released a statement reminding the public that high voltage battery fires emit toxic vapors. Additionally, as of Monday, there have been 168 confirmed cases of Tesla fires, with 50 resulting in fatalities, according to Tesla-fire.com. On the other hand, Tesla claims that gasoline-powered vehicles are 11 times more likely to catch fire compared to their vehicles and that their official count of Tesla fires is significantly lower than what is reported on Tesla-fire.com.
Between 2012 and 2021, Tesla states that there was only one Tesla car fire for every 210 million miles traveled. Meanwhile, according to data from the US Department of Transportation, there is a car fire for every 19 million miles driven by fuel-powered vehicles. Tesla also claims that only about 40 car fires have been reported.
Despite the fact that EV fires are much rarer than gasoline car fires, they do burn at much higher temperatures and require significantly more water to extinguish. Andrew Klock of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), which offers EV courses for firefighters, stated that the Fire Service has had a hundred years to train and understand how to deal with internal combustion engine fires. However, he noted that firefighters need to be trained specifically for dealing with electric vehicles, as they do not have as much training and knowledge in this area.
