Bucks crews: Tesla EV fires are more dangerous, require more water

Vehicle fires are considered a fairly routine call in Bucks County, but a recent one in a Falls Township scrap yard was a first for local fire companies.

This fire involved a Tesla.

The fully electric vehicle, which was damaged in an accident, was scheduled to be demolished when workers at the MY Lane business found it engulfed in flames Oct. 22, said Brian Salt, deputy chief of the Falls Fire Co. No. 1

Fire officials were unable to find out much information about the Tesla, including how long it had been at the yard or how it caught fire, Salt said. The fire was not considered suspicious, he added.

Workers were able to move the vehicle away from others in the yard, and no other vehicles were damaged, Salt said. Firefighters used a special fire blanket designed for electric vehicles to help extinguish the fire.

“It was really very anticlimactic,” Salt said.

But for firefighters the situation provided a rare opportunity for hands-on experience with an electric vehicle fire, a situation local volunteer companies have trained for only virtually.

In recent months, several Tesla models have been involved in accidents in Bucks County, most recently in Warrington when a car crashed into a home Oct. 19. The vehicle did not catch fire.

National research shows that the possibility of fire with electric vehicles poses more serious challenges and dangers than gas-powered vehicle fires.

Electric vehicle fires are known to burn longer. They’re also harder to put out and tend to reignite, sometimes days later. Fighting them requires more personnel and water, which can be a problem in areas without hydrants.

“We know they’re extremely difficult to extinguish and require a copious amount of water,” Bensalem Battalion Chief Robert Sponheimer said. “More than a house fire.”

Tesla fires have required using more than 30,000 gallons of water. For comparison, Sponheimer said, a car with a combustible engine can be extinguished using less than 1,000 gallons.

Another challenge is the location of batteries in a Tesla compared with other hybrids, said Tom Benscoter, chief of the Midway Fire Co. The Prius battery pack is in the rear of the vehicle, while the Tesla's is under the vehicle.

With a car fire, the tires typically blow out, leaving the vehicle flat to the ground where firefighters can’t access the battery pack, Bucks County Chief Fire Marshal John Gundy added.

Fully-electric vehicle fire burn hotter, reaching up to 3,000 degrees and making it hard for firefighters to move close, creating a greater risk for explosion, Gundy said.

Aside from the batteries, another potential danger for firefighters is electrocution if they cut into a main power line because of the extreme voltage, the firefighters said.

As of Oct. 24, Tesla reported 232 confirmed cases of fires and 83 fatalities involving car fires since 2013 worldwide. Of that number, 132 cases have occurred in the U.S.

A video taken in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene earlier this month shows a Tesla vehicle bursting into flames inside a home garage in Florida. Officials believe the car’s battery exploded and caught fire after coming in contact with saltwater as a result of the storm.

In Pennsylvania, the only other confirmed Tesla fire occurred in November 2021 when a Montgomery County home sustained major damage after a Tesla burst into flames while charging in the driveway.

Fully electric vehicles such as Teslas have a large cache of lithium ion batteries connected together. If one of those cells is compromised, it causes a chemical reaction generating heat.

When enough heat is generated, the protective membrane ruptures and can spreads to other cells, compromising them, said George Wilson, interim director of operations for Bucks County Emergency Management.

This thermal spread is also how fire can reignite in fully electric vehicles, he added.

“That is one of these things that makes vehicles difficult is it’s hard to predict how many cells it's going to propagate to,” Wilson said.

In recent years, most available EV fire training has focused on learning the anatomy of the car and how to avoid electrocution during extrications, firefighters said.

"There haven’t been a ton of these things catch on fire,” Sponheimer said.

Bucks County has offered fire departments classes on lithium ion batteries, according to Wilson, and has a hazmat technician level course and first responder courses to cover electric vehicles.

Midway Fire Co. started focusing on EV fire training about two years ago and hosted a class for local departments that brought in auto manufacturer representatives to educate them about how the vehicles are built, Benscoter said.

Midway is also working on developing standard operating guidelines for electric vehicles, Benscoter said, and it has outfitted the chief’s truck with tow straps so it can pull out a vehicle in a garage or other structure.

A handful of Bucks County fire companies have obtained special fire blankets, a single-use heavy cover that encapsulates the vehicle and prevents the lithium ion batteries from burning.

Bensalem Fire Rescue has one that was donated a year ago by a Tesla dealership in Princeton, New Jersey, Sponheimer said. Bristol’s Third District Volunteer Fire Co. Station 14 also had a blanket, which it gave to Falls Fire Co. for its recent Tesla fire.

One downside of the training is that it has relied on virtual scenarios and visual depictions, rather than live, in-person learning on an electric vehicle, the fire officials said.

While what they learned gave Falls firefighters enough knowledge and confidence to know how to handle its first EV fire, seeing one in-real time was eye-opening, Salt said.

“It’s a lot different in person than with pictures,” he said. “It’s definitely an experience.”

Reporter Jo Ciavaglia can be reached at [email protected].