https://www.newsinenglish.no/2020/01/07/raging-fire-shuts-stavangers-airport/

If it turns out to have been an electric car that started the fire then I predict it will make the international news.

If it was a diesel, meh, not so much.

That’s certainly the rumour on local news here, although it’s unconfirmed at the moment. Certainly glad I wasn’t parked there or flying today, but good to hear no one hurt

The cause is unknown and under investigation but local police said they were notified at about 3:30 p.m. that an electric car was on fire in the parking garage. Norway has the most electric cars per capita in the world.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-07/fire-at-norway-airport-destroys-hundreds-of-cars-grounds-planes

There was a big fire in Liverpool a couple of years back,I think it was caused by a Land Rover.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/liverpool-echo-arena-fire-dramatic-pictures-show-devastation-after-massive-blaze-rips-through-car-a3729631.html

If it turns out to have been an electric car that started the fire then I predict it will make the international news

Cos regular cars don’t catch fire? Weren’t 200 odd cars and a car park destroyed by a normal car catching fire (spark from a malfunction in the engine) a few years ago? In Birmingham iirc?

Edit: what bustaspoke said

That’s Briucewee’s point. 🤦🏻‍♂️

TBF, I think any fire that destroyed hundreds of cars and closed an airport would make international news, for example, the horse show story.

The rumour was that the Liverpool Arena fire was caused by an LPG modified Land Rover.

I might know someone who’ll know more, so let me do some digging.

In other news, Teslas take in the region of 11,356 litres of water to extinguish a battery fire. Typical UK fire engine capacity is 1,365…

An airport fire engine would carry rather more, but I bet they wouldn’t send one to a carp ark fire.

Just an idle question here.

What’s likely to do more damage if going up in flames?

Car with full tank of petrol vs the battery on an ev?

Zafira? Vauxhall’s hottest car.

[strong]Rich_s[/strong] wrote:

The rumour was that the Liverpool Arena fire was caused by an LPG modified Land Rover.
I might know someone who’ll know more, so let me do some digging.
In other news, Teslas take in the region of 11,356 litres of water to extinguish a battery fire. Typical UK fire engine capacity is 1,365…
An airport fire engine would carry rather more, but I bet they wouldn’t send one to a carp ark fire.

Takes less than that to extinguish the fire its the cooling that uses the water. we carry 1800 ltrs

Some UK airport fire service do not respond to non air side incidents, can’t speak for Norway tho

Car with full tank of petrol vs the battery on an ev?

never had a tank of petrol go pop, you dont want to be near tyres when they let go or air bags

but local police said they were notified at about 3:30 p.m. that an electric car was on fire in the parking garage

according to local news.

Earlier in the day a man was arrested for setting off the fire alarm in the airport to stop his flight so he could catch it ….

coincidental…

MotoE bike fire last year

https://www.motorsport.com/motoe/news/jerez-fire-bikes-destroyed/4352249/

Just an idle question here.

What’s likely to do more damage if going up in flames?

Car with full tank of petrol vs the battery on an ev?

Supposedly they’re a bit of a sod to put out, and can reignite hours, even days later.

I had a petrol car go up on me at 60mph due to an electrical fault, it was frankly terrifying but vehicle fires are still pretty rare compared to the number of vehicles on the road.

all cars can go on fire…

its the e vehicles love of going on fire when not in use that is the issue.

petrol contained in a tank so long as no ignition source or serious heat is going to do nothing with known properties. Throw in an ignition source and it will go up.

Its long known that batteries are pretty volatile even in a non use state. The more energy density(IE Range – the key thing folks are asking for) the more volatile they are.

Our Neighbours old VW Beetle, caught fire outside the house once

was a hot sunny day, developed into a fireball in minutes, was quite fun to watch (I was 12)

I have nothing to give me any sort of reliable real world statistics, but in petrol vs battery:

– Petrol would generate more heat if left to burn (petrol engined cars can go further, despite ~20% or less efficiency of the engine).

– Battery would be harder to put out, as you don’t need air for the energy to be released.

So it depends if someone manages to respond quickly. I imagine dealing with electric car fires would be very challenging.

Q for the fire fighters.

Will a battery eventually go out in a big bang once it gets hot enough?

Like a petrol tank will eventually spread either via a pool fire or BLEVE? Or does it just get hotter and hotter.

When Hammond crashed the Rimac didn’t they have the problems of power cells reigniting even three days later?

In my previous job a few years back I did a lot of development and reliabiltiy engineering on an EV, many of which are in use across the UK.

We did some training sessions with Fire Crews and the reccomended procedures were to bascially move everybody away, then continually soak the packs to keep them cool, checking surface temperature regularly with a laser thermometer.

There have been a number of fires, and I know in at least one case, that the packs re-ignited whilst the vehicle was on the back of a wrecker in a recovery yard, many hours after having been dealt with.

What I will say – it doesn’t scare me at all – as it takes a LONG time for the fire to become uncontrolled or dangerous and you will know about it a long time before (through the vehicle systems and warnings or performance of the vehicle.).

Contrast that to Petrol cars which I have seen catch fire – including once which went from ‘ooh whats that smell’ to ‘rolling out the door of a roaring inferno’ in the time it takes to get from the outside lane to the hard shoulder.

I never knew milk floats were that dangerous…

When we all drive EVs, car fires will actually fall by around 80%.

This is because 80% of the worlds car fires are caused by hot exhaustline components (often the catalyst) setting fire to dry grass or scrub when the vehicle is parked off road after being driven!!

EVs, are of course “cold” underneath,s o even if they are more likely to catch on fire themsleves (they aren’t) the overall number of car fires would go down enourmously

(obviously, in the uk, where it rains and our grass is green, car exhausts setting things of fire is not that common, but i a lot of the world, it’s VERY common!)

https://www.autoblog.com/2019/03/26/firefighters-dropped-smoldering-bmw-i8-water-tank/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvLnVrLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGKFYu7o5DbJWYXPTOo2whkLOU9lm_sE4WdzvuBw-_3fMi_2dNdu3CksI_7Y1rzGA19Z_8Inzvzb2O16PkA8f7cGjvzXfVMidocsINC4F2bjrRKx-Kv6SZCHvSTbnFyV98CJ087luNfMi2S6el5k1ElOuGlulxEnPw12qf8Pmksv

Apparently full submersion in a salt water tank is the recomended course of action on the continent
Fastest and most efficient way of extinguishing the fire and stopping re-ignition
Unsure how they pick up a burning Tesla though , some sort of tele handler with nice log forks and an extra large aquarium .
prob only need 5000ltr give or take , allowing for displacement

its the e vehicles love of going on fire when not in use that is the issue.

Petrol cars are just as likely. I was walking home fairly late one night, and came out into my road from a side road, and I could see something flickering across the other side of the road. I walked across and a car parked by the kerb was burning inside the engine compartment, with burning material dripping onto the road. This was getting on for 1.00am, before mobile phones were common, and I lived several minutes walk up the road; getting the attention of someone to call the fire brigade took some doing!
I ended up being stopped and interviewed by a couple of cops as I got near to home, asking me what I’d been doing! My civic duty, as it happens officer.
When I walked past the car next day, it was really quite a mess, and almost certainly spontaneous.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/up-to-60-cars-scorched-in-accidental-cork-car-park-blaze-1.4004015

Vauxhall zafira burnt down our local shopping center and car park last year and it now needs to be pulled down.

There was a big fire in Liverpool a couple of years back,I think it was caused by a Land Rover.

Yeah I watched a presentation by Merseyside FRS on that & it was very enlightening with lots of factors contributing to the outcome.
IIRC, Due to the horse show being on, the car park was packed with lots of 4x4s. The non-fire resistant rainwater drainage system enabled a running fuel fire to the other levels. Metal grilles on the openings prevented effective external firefighting. They worked out that due to the fire loading caused by modern vehicles in close proximity, they wouldn’t have been able to have made much of a difference to the initial escalation no matter what resources were used.
The building/fire regs for car parks hasn’t changed since the 1960s so these aren’t going to be isolated events.

Unsure how they pick up a burning Tesla though , some sort of tele handler with nice log forks and an extra large aquarium .
prob only need 5000ltr give or take , allowing for displacement

Surely a log is the last thing you want near a burning car!!

Petrol would generate more heat if left to burn (petrol engined cars can go further, despite ~20% or less efficiency of the engine).

I wouldn’t be so confident of that. A Tesla Model S battery is much heavier (~500 kg) than a full-ish petrol tank (~50 kg). Although the usable energy in the petrol is higher than the battery it’s possible (likely?) that more energy can be released from the battery as heat in a fire than can be released as electricity in normal operation.

Apparently the fire originated from a 2005 diesel Opel.

There were several EVs within the 300 cars caught in the fire, but none of their batteries burned so they posed no extra problem to the fire fighters.

Yeah link here
https://ww.electrek.co/2020/01/09/tesla-blamed-fire-old-diesel-car/