In Los Angeles, a truck full of lithium-ion batteries burns, paralyzing ports and a bridge. It's not clear what the batteries were for – but LA's Vincent Thomas Bridge, which leads to the Port of Los Angeles and the nearby Port of Long Beach, has been shut down for at least 15 hours while local firefighters allowed the truck to burn. State Route 47 was also closed in both directions a few hours ago.
Amazingly, a local towing company caught the explosion on camera with a nearby drone:
Both the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach have closed several terminals as the fire continues to burn. As of 12:10 a.m. PT Friday, the truck was still ablaze and both the ports and bridge were still closed, said Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) spokesman Ren Medina. The edge.
Firefighters are nearby and actively monitoring the situation; As of 10 p.m. PT on Thursday, the fire was expected to continue for “at least another 24 to 48 hours.”
As we've seen with several electric vehicle battery fires, large concentrated lithium battery fires can be very difficult to put out: firefighters sometimes douse them with thousands of gallons of water, only to see the fire break out again as more battery cells spread heat so that a fire occurs and they burn. Once a cell gets hot enough, “thermal runaway” occurs, which can sometimes result in re-fire. The LAFD confirms this is a thermal runaway.
Electric vehicle batteries are particularly rich in cells, but we don't yet know if they were involved here – the LA Fire Department spokesman says it's not clear who owns the truck, let alone what it was carrying. At this time, the LAFD could only confirm that the batteries were lithium-ion batteries.
Josh Acosta, owner of Pepe's Tow Service, who filmed the explosion with his drone, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But he apparently plans to release even more footage: “The full video on YouTube will be amazing!!!” he wrote.
Umar Shakir contributed to this story