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| Out-of-control EV blaze (thermal runaway) threatens to sink massive RORO ship. |
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| PA0PBZ:
I happen to live close to where the ship is on fire. I didn't watch the YT but the EV story was in almost all news reports about this, so maybe one of the crew members of the ship had some information where the fire started? Time will tell. The problem they are facing is that they can't continue putting water on the fire because the ship will get instable and could tip over and sink, which is not what we want in these waters, so they only cool down the ship on the outside. Latest reports are that the situation is getting better slowly, no more visible flames, so they are waiting for the ship to cool down enough to be boarded and towed away. |
| nctnico:
--- Quote from: mendip_discovery on July 28, 2023, 07:31:11 am ---BBC News - Ameland rescue: Crew jump off ship ablaze with cargo of 3,000 cars https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66310280 Yesterday it was reported by the coastguard the fire was believed to have started with an electric car. But reading the article now that has been watered down. So the YT chap was just a bit quick to jump on the EV cars are bad band wagon for some views. --- End quote --- But still, despite the actual cause of the fire, when EVs are involved the fire is extremely hard to put out (*). On a ship it is next to impossible. The ship currently on fire isn't the first ship with cars that has caught fire and they can't put the fire out. It may take weeks until the fire stops by itself. If you pump more water into the ship, it may sink leading to an even bigger environmental catastrophy. If ships with cars catching fire and sinking / total loss as a result where common, we wouldn't be reading it in the news. So there is a problem with transporting EVs on ships. * The Dutch fire brigade has special trucks with water bins in which they submerge an EV to put the fire out as just sprinkling water over the car doesn't help. |
| Berni:
Feel free to do the research yourself if you don't believe any of the forum members here. We are just discussing it for fun. If you are in charge of drafting up new standards on how to handle burning EVs or something then you should be using more reliable sources than this forum anyway. Firefighters do have special protocols for things that involve electricity like EVs or solar panel arrays. How real the shock hazard is i don't know, hence why i said "in theory", just that nobody wants to be held accountable for someone getting shocked to death so they are careful with it anyway and put protocols in place. Not saying that internal combustion cars don't burn, or that they are easy to extinguish if they do catch fire. Just that large lithium battery packs present a unique extra challenge in putting the fire out. Those batteries contain a lot of energy and once damaged they don't need oxygen or heat to release it (also in the process likely damage cells next to it causing those to fail too). Unlike burning gasoline or diesel or plastics that stop burning once deprived of heat or oxygen. The EVs catching fires is a thing that the media loves to focus on and write about, while they won't even report on a internal combustion car catching fire (unless there is something else in the news story to write about). None of the cars (EV or ICE) spontaneously catch fire often enough for people to be worried about there own car catching fire, sure it happens but it is a few known cases among the many many many cars out there. |
| Ranayna:
From what i understood, there are like 25 BEVs on that ship. Alongside around 2000 ICE cars. Sure, a battery might have started the fire. And they surely are burning now. But can they really still be a major contributing factor to the fire as a whole? From what i heard this morning on the radio, the temperatures on the ship are decreasing and there are no visible flames anymore. |
| nctnico:
--- Quote from: Ranayna on July 28, 2023, 08:49:20 am ---From what i understood, there are like 25 BEVs on that ship. Alongside around 2000 ICE cars. Sure, a battery might have started the fire. And they surely are burning now. But can they really still be a major contributing factor to the fire as a whole? From what i heard this morning on the radio, the temperatures on the ship are decreasing and there are no visible flames anymore. --- End quote --- No. There where nearly 500 BEVs on the ship (out of 3800 cars in total) and according to the news (probably based on a statement made by a crew member / report from the captain to the coast guard), one of these cars caught fire. |
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