An electric car has been linked to a fire on a cargo ship carrying nearly 3,000 vehicles in the North Sea which killed one person and forced others to jump overboard. The Telegraph has more.
Authorities warned the blaze, which began on Tuesday night off the Dutch coast on the 199-metre Panama-registered Fremantle Highway, “could burn for days” despite efforts to extinguish it.
Rescue ships sprayed water onto the burning boat in an attempt to cool it down. It was towed out of shipping lanes and a salvage vessel was hooked on to stop it from drifting.
The ship was carrying nearly 3,000 vehicles in total en route from Germany to Egypt when the fire broke out.
One crew member died in the flames and several were injured, with at least seven people jumping overboard in a bid to escape the quickly-spreading flames, before being rescued.
A helicopter airlifted the remaining people from the 23-strong crew off the ship. Those injured were being treated for breathing problems, burns and broken bones.
The cause of the blaze remains unknown, the Dutch coastguard said on its website, but a spokesperson for the department said earlier on Wednesday that it had erupted near an electric car.
A report from Dutch broadcaster NOS also quoted an unnamed official as suggesting the fire may have been sparked by an electric vehicle, one of some 25 on board.
“We are taking into account all scenarios,” the official said.
Authorities said the blaze was “most definitely still not controlled”.
“It’s a very hard fire to extinguish, possibly because of the cargo the ship was transporting,” said Edwin Versteeg, a spokesperson for the Dutch department of waterways and public works.
Sounds like it could be just the latest disaster caused by the unwelcome tendency of electric cars to spontaneously combust, raising further questions about the safety of the technology.
Worth reading in full.
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Difficult not to laugh – so I’ll laugh
Isn’t this the second one in 12 months?
Plenty of expensive real cars have been totalled too – Bentleys, Lamborghinis, etc..
I know what you mean but, when people get killed and injured by these world saving technologies it becomes a very serious issue, it makes you wonder if its worth it or not? We’ve been transporting ice cars around the world for over a century with no fatalities like this!
Sincere condolences to the dead and injured.
I’m past caring, to be honest – that asteroid can’t come soon enough.
Jeez Laptop.. do you get invited to parties..
Latest update says total number of cars is close to 4000, not 3000. The current view is most definitely that the fire started in an EV, which also makes it almost impossible to extinguish: it would need significant amounts of water they they cannot do as that would affect the stability of the ship. And as it is very close to the protected area of Wadden, that would be an environmental and ecological disaster.
I find it fascinating that it gets relatively little press…
Isn’t salt water a quite good conductor of electricity – probably not the best thing for an electrical fire.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/climate-cults-crazed-attack-on-white-men/
Worth reading for the comedy value.
Global warming is caused by white men only or some such crap but definitely not by the likes of the Rockefellers, Fink, Soros or Billy.
Yeah.. but Hux.. Rockefeller, Fink, Soros and Billy ain’t men of any description.. aliens yes..
EVs do not emit CO2, they said. It turns out they do, even when stationary.
Good one Greg.. that made old George chuckle..
The latest as of this morning. They’re worried it might capsize and be an environmental hazard to the nearby Wadden Islands but they seem to have things under control regarding that particular risk at present. No oil leakage detected as yet either;
”The situation with the burning cargo ship north of Ameland is virtually unchanged from last night. The fire is still burning, and the Fremantle Highway is still afloat. At this stage, it is not at risk of capsizing or sinking, the Coast Guard told NOS.
“The tugboat has an emergency connection with the ship, so we can keep it in position,” Edwing Granneman of the Coast Guard told the broadcaster. The salvage company wants to send people on board to assess the situation more accurately, but that is currently impossible due to the extreme heat. “There are still fires and smoke.”
Later on Thursday, the Coast Guard will check from the air whether the temperature on board has dropped at all. According to Granneman, it could take days before the fire is extinguished. The Coast Guard’s crisis team and the recovery companies will meet today to discuss the different scenarios.”
https://nltimes.nl/2023/07/27/cargo-ship-still-burning-ameland-coast-risk-capsizing-averted
My neighbour’s loft is now full of batteries to store energy from the solar panels on their roof. Should I worry?
“Should I worry?”
Yes.
We’re detached but I will check my insurance. They should probably worry more.
I like your pseudonym, in the circumstances……..
Lol. It’s meant to be a reference to a book by Jean Klein, but it seems to have become topical in multiple contexts.
Please let us know what the insurers say.
You could ask your insurer. However, that could be a bad idea if your premium goes up, or has certain causes uninsurable.
I would be wary about asking questions of your insurer. Do it in a more indirect way. I remember a few years ago asking an apparently innocuous ‘what if’ question about my house insurance and being told that simply asking such a question could affect my premium.
As the battery advised for solar panel installations are Lithium-ion, the same as EV’s, the answer to your question as Hux’ has suggested, is yes.
I’d worry about their joists and the room underneath. And about fire, yes.
They were told they’d get their money back in 10 years.
Wait a few months for the secondary heating to give you a warm winter.
Very much so, yes
If the are Lithium batteries then yes, but there are other storage technologies with are better longer term and much safer, but probably they are too heavy to be stored in an attic.
Yeah, you’d a big loft to accommodate pumped storage
I’d wager £100 it was a Tesla.
Well they did say it was marked with an X..
The Model X is the worst. And now Twatter, too.
And just think of the new imports of cheap Chinese evs that are about to start travelling the world on mass!! They are known to be firestarters!
There’s going to be a lot of these fire filled ships in the coming years, I pity the crews who have to risk this for a living, and regular ferry users!
Let’s hope so.
Isn’t it a Boche ship, so likely to ba a VW or a BMW? There are reported to be Bentleys destroyed too.
Flaming Nora, they are getting desperate! Could this man be any more of a drama queen? We have surpassed ”global warming” and have escalated to ”global boiling” apparently. Though looking at a dreary, wet week of temps barely scraping 20degs here in the Netherlands, I think we must be experiencing the asymptomatic version..
https://twitter.com/Vladi_mir_PoP/status/1684571731334418433
When they over-egg it so blatantly they just make fools of themselves. It’s beginning to backfire. Even my eco-conscious friends are seeing through it.
Measuring the temp near a burning EV battery, eh?
They know that, with every day that passes, more people are becoming aware of the scam …. they have to push harder and faster.
“I think we must be experiencing the asymptomatic version.”
We are nowhere near 20°C here Mogs.
I know.. 20C.. that’s positively barmy.. where.. I want to go there NOW..
He’s a comedian. The planet is boiling and he’s stood there in a suit and tie with nary a bead of sweat. Wa#ker.
This is the second car transporter lost to EV fires on board in a year or so. The polution caused by them must be huge.
What measureds have the UK government taken to ensure this one or the next one does not drift into gas rigs in our North Sea sector. The consequences could be huge.
Unfortunately I see more and more environmentally disastrous EV’s on the roads every day. They weigh too much, the batteries are nothing but poisonous sludge once they’ve expired and they are causing car insurance premiums to rocket for EVERYONE, not just EV owners.
How long before these ships are uninsurable?
Very environmentally friendly …. NOT.
Funny how there isn’t a word about this fire on the BBC or any other broadcasters who propagandise about “green” issues.