The National Transportation Safety Board says California firefighters had to douse a flaming battery in a Tesla Semi with about 50,000 gallons of water to put out flames after a crash.

California firefighters had to douse a flaming battery in a Tesla Semi with about 50,000 gallons (190,000 liters) of water to extinguish flames after a crash, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday.

In addition to the huge amount of water, firefighters used an aircraft to drop fire retardant on the “immediate area” of the electric truck as a precautionary measure, the agency said in a preliminary report.

Firefighters said previously that the battery reached temperatures of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (540 Celsius) while it was in flames.

The NTSB sent investigators to the Aug. 19 crash along Interstate 80 near Emigrant Gap, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northeast of Sacramento. The agency said it would look into fire risks posed by the truck’s large lithium-ion battery.

  • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
    1·
    4 months ago

    a foam extinguisher containing CO2, powder graphite, ABC dry chemical, or sodium carbonate

    Huh? modern foam suppressants do not use dry chemicals or powders (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefighting_foam).

    The Wikipedia article has this:

    The original foam was a mixture of two powders and water produced in a foam generator. It was called chemical foam because of the chemical action to create it. In general, the powders used were sodium bicarbonate and aluminium sulfate, with small amounts of saponin or liquorice added to stabilise the bubbles. […] Chemical foam is a stable solution of small bubbles containing carbon dioxide with lower density than oil or water, and exhibits persistence for covering flat surfaces.

    Which sounds like what your article is talking about, but nobody uses that anymore, it’s from 1904:

    Chemical foam is considered obsolete today because of the many containers of powder required, even for small fires.

    Was this article written by an LLM copying text from other sources? It’s basically just an ad for this company’s products. I wouldn’t trust this source for real-world firefighting information.