Burning Tesla Semi required firefighting plane and water for 50 ICE vehicles to put out

The National Transportation Safety Board, an independent government agency that investigates vehicle accidents, is out with its assessment of the first Tesla Semi truck fire.

It usually takes up to 1,000 gallons of water to extinguish an ICE vehicle fire, but lithium EV batteries burn a lot longer as they tend to reignite, so Tesla says its cars may need up to 8,000 gallons when "applied directly to the battery."

In the case of the Tesla Semi, however, and its giant 900 kWh battery pack, it took California firefighters 50,000 gallons of water until the flames from the burning truck could be put out, 50x the typical amount used for an ICE vehicle.

Shortly after 3 AM on August 19, a Tesla Semi veered off the road, hit a tree and hurtled down a slope to crash into a forest. At some point after the lane departure, the lithium battery ignited, but the Tesla employee managed to escape the cabin unscathed.

The truck continued to burn for quite a while and made the news since the California Highway Patrol, CAL FIRE, and Caltrans had to divert traffic on I-80. Tesla immediately dispatched a high-voltage fire hazard safety specialist who consulted the firefighters to use scanners to monitor battery temperature and air quality at all times.

"Traffic on I-80 was diverted as emergency responders worked to control the fire, using about 50,000 gallons of water to extinguish the flames and cool the vehicle’s batteries," says the NTSB report. Not only that, but they also had to put a firefighting plane in the air to spray the whole area with fire retardant and make sure the flames remain localized to the place of the accident.

The issue with putting out a spontaneously reigniting lithium battery fire is that it takes enormous amounts of time and water compared to burning ICE vehicles. Firefighters have to douse an electric car battery for hours on end as the cells keep reigniting.

Companies like Rosenbauer now even offer dedicated EV fire tools that pierce the battery pack with high-pressure nozzles to spray the cells inside directly. Still, the Tesla Semi fire incident shows that electric vehicle fires will be an ever-growing challenge for fire departments nationwide.