Tesla Catches Fire in Dead of Night Inside Garage Just After Christmas, Spreads Into Home
Missouri firefighters were called in to battle a blaze in the early hours on Monday.
When responders arrived at the scene, they determined that a Tesla vehicle was on fire in a Webster Grove home's attached garage, KMOV reports.
At approximately 3 a.m., responders found the on-fire Tesla in the garage, along with a non-electric vehicle, according to the report.
According to KMOV, sources reported that the fire had spread into the home and did cause additional damage.
Fortunately, no injuries were reported at the scene.
The firefighters were able to remove the Tesla and put out the fire.
It's difficult to imagine waking up to this, and I'll take the opportunity to remind our readers to take a minute to change out the batteries in your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors if you haven't in the past year.
Done that? Great. Let's continue.
It's fortunate first responders were able to handle the situation with relative ease.
With electric vehicles, that's not always the case.
While The Western Journal has previously reported that electric vehicles are not considered more dangerous than regular vehicles, it can prove more costly to extinguish an electric vehicle fire, particularly when it comes to water expended.
A lithium-ion battery can burn longer and may reignite even after the fire is extinguished.
In fact, a November 2022 Tesla fire required two hours of continuous water by first responders to extinguish thanks to a "lithium-ion battery which continued to reignite," according to WTAJ.
That seems to have been proven in a September 2022 fire in which a Tesla fire took 42 minutes to extinguish with the responders hitting the fire with 600 gallons of water a minute.
The cause of this particular Tesla fire wasn't provided, but there have been instances of electric vehicle fires borne of corrosion -- recently, a Tesla caught fire from the saltwater thanks to Hurricane Ian.
Electric vehicles are a relatively new component of mainstream American transit.
New technology bears new challenges. As we experience more issues in acclimating to electric vehicles, let's hope our first responders continue to have the resources and ability to overcome it.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
