- Firefighters from Washington handled an electric vehicle fire using a special blanket and water for safety.
- All fire trucks in the region have specialized blankets for electric vehicles for similar cases.
Extinguishing a fire in an electric vehicle is not a typical task for firefighters. It is much more complicated than extinguishing a fire in a traditional internal combustion engine vehicle, often requiring a large amount of water, or in some cases,
This week, firefighters in Granite Falls, Washington, faced this very challenge but with a twist: they used a specially designed fire blanket to combat the electric vehicle fire.
According to the Snohomish County Fire and Rescue Branch, the electric vehicle caught fire while driving on SR-92 on Monday morning. All vehicles used by local fire crews have special electric vehicle blankets for situations like this. To extinguish the fire, the blanket is deployed over the vehicle, after which the battery pack is doused with water.
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Fires in electric vehicles release a vast amount of heat and, unlike internal combustion engine vehicles, can burn without oxygen access. There have also been many cases where electric vehicles reignited days or even weeks after the initial thermal event. To reduce the risk, local fire crews followed the flatbed truck transporting the electric vehicle to a local storage facility.
The exact make and model were not disclosed. However, Granite Falls firefighters stated on their Facebook page that the fire was not caused by an impact.
Are electric vehicle fires really common?
While electric vehicle fires often make headlines, the numbers tell a different story. According to the US National Transportation Safety Board, there are about 25 fires per 100,000 electric vehicles sold in the USA. This may sound alarming until you compare it with 1,530 fires per 100,000 internal combustion engine vehicles. Thus, despite the attention they attract, electric vehicle fires are still much less common than in traditional vehicles.