(New York) Nearly 200,000 liters of water and the dropping of retardant by an airplane were needed to extinguish the fire of a Semi, the electric semi-trailer of the manufacturer Tesla, which crashed in August on a wooded road in California, according to the American Transportation Safety Administration (NTSB).
In a preliminary report, the NTSB said the vehicle left the roadway on a curve while traveling on Interstate 80 shortly after 3 a.m. Aug. 19 near Emigrant Gap, Calif., in the Sierra Nevada forest.
The electric truck ended up on the side of the road, blocked by trees. The driver, a Tesla employee, escaped unharmed.
But “the vehicle’s lithium-ion battery pack caught fire after it left the road, causing a fire,” the agency reported, adding that no other vehicles were involved in the incident.
It took about 50,000 gallons of water — about 190,000 liters — to extinguish the flames and cool the vehicle’s batteries, the agency said, adding that the California Fire Department had mobilized an aircraft to drop retardant around the crash site as a precaution.
California suffers from numerous forest fires every summer, which are very destructive and sometimes fatal, fueled by violent winds and high temperatures in a context of perennial drought.
The highway remained closed for at least 14 hours “so that firefighters could ensure that the batteries were at a safe temperature” for the evacuation of what was left of the vehicle – which was then kept under surveillance for 24 hours – and to prevent any risk of the fire spreading to the surrounding forest.
During Tesla’s second-quarter results presentation in late July, its boss Elon Musk indicated that large-scale production of the Semi remained scheduled for the end of 2025.
The first copies have been delivered to a few customers such as Pepsi, Walmart and Costco since 2022, for testing.
Lithium-ion batteries have a risk of catching fire or exploding if they are overcharged, have manufacturing defects, or are subjected to high temperatures.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) banned the carriage of lithium-ion batteries in the hold in 2016 at the request of airlines and pilots’ associations for safety reasons.