Electric automobile owners have seen their rides catch fire after becoming waterlogged during Hurricane Ian and it will probably take hours to place the conflagrations out, a top Florida official warned Thursday.
Because the Sunshine State recovers from the punishing Category 4 storm that made landfall last week, first responders have faced further destruction from electric vehicles that were submerged in water from the extensive flooding and later caught fire, Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s chief financial officer and state fire marshal, said on Twitter.
“There’s a ton of EVs disabled from Ian,” he tweeted. “As those batteries corrode, fires start.
“That’s a recent challenge that our firefighters haven’t faced before. No less than on this type of scale.”
In his tweet, Patronis posted a video of firefighters with the North Collier Fire Rescue District in Naples putting an electrical vehicle fire out as a bystander is heard saying it’s taken 1000’s of gallons of water to extinguish it.
“It takes special training and understanding of EVs to make sure these fires are put out quickly and safely,” Patronis tweeted.
Additional footage of the identical vehicle fire posted on Facebook by the North Collier Fire Rescue District shows firefighters dousing the automobile’s top and underbelly with water to eliminate any sparks.
The rescue district said firefighters received the decision while Patronis and state Rep. Bob Rommel visited the realm. The 2 state officials were delivered to the incident in order that they could see the problem of putting EV fires out and said it took firefighters hours to make sure the blaze was extinguished.
“That is a problem many fire departments across [southwest] Florida are experiencing right away,” the district wrote on Facebook. “These vehicles have been submerged in salt water; they’ve extensive damage and may potentially be serious fire hazards.”
Florida is barely behind California for many electric vehicles on the road at greater than 95,000 registered within the state, in response to the US Department of Energy.
Rebuilding from Hurricane Ian is predicted to cost billions of dollars, officials have said.
