Greater than 100 firefighters and a hazardous supplies staff have been working Wednesday evening to fight a fireplace involving lithium ion batteries and prototype automobiles at Normal Motors’ design studio in Pasadena, authorities mentioned.
At one level, a firefighter was trapped within the construction amid the ferocious blaze and despatched out a mayday name.
The Pasadena Hearth Division responded to the fireplace within the 600 block of Sierra Madre Villa Avenue at 5:50 p.m., in keeping with division spokesperson Lisa Derderian. The incident was declared a four-alarm hearth — signifying a catastrophic blaze that requires the mobilization of great hearth division sources — because of the scale of the construction and the hazardous supplies concerned.
A firefighter is amongst dozens battling a fireplace Wednesday on the Normal Motors design studio in Pasadena.
(Hon Wing Chiu / For The Instances)
“This is without doubt one of the largest construction fires we’ve had in Pasadena in lots of, a few years,” Derderian mentioned.
Preliminary stories indicated that lithium ion batteries and idea automobiles burned contained in the constructing; nevertheless, the incident remained lively Wednesday night, and the reason for the fireplace is underneath investigation, she mentioned. A number of the burned automobiles gave the impression to be gasoline-powered automobiles.
It took firefighters greater than an hour to trace down the supply of the blaze as thick smoke engulfed the 149,000-square-foot campus. Normal Motors invested greater than $71 million in 2021 to construct the three-building facility as a brand new base for its Superior Design Heart.
The blaze is difficult to fight as crews can’t use water to extinguish lithium ion battery fires. Doing so could cause a destabilizing chemical response, main extra batteries to catch hearth or explode.
“Firefighters on scene have skilled in situations like this, but it surely does put a distinct twist on extinguishing fires,” Derderian mentioned.
Giant lithium ion battery fires can take a number of hours and even days to render secure.
The fireplace burned lithium ion batteries and idea automobiles on the Normal Motors facility, officers mentioned.
(Hon Wing Chiu / For The Instances)
When one battery cell overheats, it might set off a sequence response the place close by cells additionally overheat. This response releases warmth and poisonous gases and might proceed deep contained in the battery pack lengthy after seen flames are put out.
There was a mayday name when a firefighter grew to become trapped contained in the fire-engulfed constructing Wednesday night. However hearth crews have been capable of find him and pull him out of the construction with out accidents.
“He didn’t want to be transported [to a hospital], but it surely was a really scary couple of minutes there till they decided that he was OK,” Derderian mentioned.
Hearth crews are looking all the campus to make sure there is no such thing as a one else trapped inside, she mentioned. Crews will stay on scene in a single day as they proceed to take care of the hazardous supplies concerned within the blaze.
