California firefighters had to douse a flaming battery in a Tesla Semi with about 50,000 gallons (190,000 liters) of water to extinguish flames after a crash, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday.
In addition to the huge amount of water, firefighters used an aircraft to drop fire retardant on the “immediate area” of the electric truck as a precautionary measure, the agency said in a preliminary report.
Firefighters said previously that the battery reached temperatures of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (540 Celsius) while it was in flames.
The NTSB sent investigators to the Aug. 19 crash along Interstate 80 near Emigrant Gap, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northeast of Sacramento. The agency said it would look into fire risks posed by the truck’s large lithium-ion battery.
Nnnno, I'm sorry, you've misunderstood - I was airing my (fairly reasonable) doubt that you don't know why it shouldn't be used on those types of fires.
It is, I admit, also not my responsibility to educate those too stupid to google stuff, but just for fun: Electrocution risk, grease fires explode when doused with water, unknown chemicals may interact with water unpredictably.
Water is absolutely used to combat battery fires. It won't extinguish them, but since firefighting is more complicated than "it puts the water on the flames or else it gets the hose again", that's not really the goal. It's to keep the chassis/batteries cool, douse the surrounding area to prevent the fire from spreading and keep any toxic combustion products from spreading via smoke (yes, that means they get washed into the environment. Not ideal, but better than breathing it.)