SURPRISE, Ariz. — Investigators are trying to determine if a hybrid car caused a home in Surprise to burst into flames Tuesday night.
The home, near Greenway and Dysart Roads, was destroyed by the fire.
“I heard a big boom,” Susana Torres, a neighbor, said.
Neighbors told 12News they heard what sounded like fireworks going off around 8 p.m.
“The flames were really high up, just bright, bright flames,” Torres said.
Surprise Fire Battalion Chief Larry Subervi said when firefighters first arrived on the scene, a majority of the flames were coming from the garage where a hybrid car was parked.
Subervi doesn’t know yet if the car started the fire but said the fire likely started in the garage.
“Even if the vehicle isn’t the ignition source, once a lithium-ion vehicle, electric vehicle is on fire, those batteries involved, there’s an additional threat there,” Subervi said.
Electric or hybrid car fires can significantly change firefighters’ approach to extinguishing the flames.
“For us, if it’s an EV or a hybrid, we’re going to start the firefight the same,” Subervi said. “Once we verify it’s an EV, we know it’s going to take a lot more water to be able to put that thing out.”
Subervi said it can take tens of thousands of gallons of water more to extinguish electric car fires compared to gas car fires.
In this case, firefighters used a fire blanket to keep the lithium-ion batteries from reigniting.
“One of the things we see with electric vehicles, one happened in the Valley where the fire is out, it’s been out for an hour, they put it on the back of a tow truck and then it catches on fire an hour later which you wouldn’t see that with a combustion engine,” Subervi said.
Subervi said they’ve seen an uptick in these fires, as expected with more people buying electric and hybrid cars.
“Those a lot of the times are in garages that we see or on charging stations,” Subervi said.
Tempe Fire Medical Rescue recently obtained a new device dedicated to fighting these fires called the Coldcut Cobra System.
“This system will actually help us penetrate that steel and get inside that battery pack to distribute water and stop the thermal runaway that takes place when those batteries ignite,” Tempe Fire Medical Rescue Assistant Chief Chris Snow said in a video posted by the City of Tempe.
Subervi told 12News that firefighters are constantly trained on the most up-to-date and effective ways to fight these fires.
“Our techniques are evolving, the firefighting is evolving, because our knowledge is evolving around these fires,” Subervi said.
One person was displaced by the fire on Tuesday. The family created a GoFundMe page to help her get back on her feet. Anyone who wishes to donate can do so here.
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