A truck full of lithium-ion batteries burned in Los Angeles, closing the port and a bridge. It’s unclear what the batteries were used for, but the Los Angeles Vincent Thomas Bridge, which leads to the Port of Los Angeles and the neighboring port of Long Beach, has now been closed for at least 15 hours while local firefighters left the truck to burn. As of a few hours ago, State Highway 47 was also closed in both directions.
Amazingly, a local towing company captured the explosion on camera from a nearby drone:
The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have both closed some terminals while fires continue to burn. Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) spokesman Ren Medina told reporters that as of 12:10 p.m. Pacific time on Friday, the truck was still on fire and ports and bridges remained closed. edge.
Firefighters are nearby and actively monitoring the situation; as of 10 p.m. PT Thursday, the fire is 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 extremely difficult to extinguish: Firefighters sometimes douse them with thousands of gallons of water, but as additional battery cells heat up to To a certain extent, the fire will rekindle. Once a battery gets hot enough, it can enter a state of “thermal runaway” and sometimes re-ignite. LAFD confirmed this was a case of thermal runaway.
Electric vehicle battery packs have particularly dense cells, but we don’t yet know if they were involved — a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Fire Department said it was unclear who owned the truck, let alone what it was carrying. LAFD can only confirm at this time that they are lithium-ion batteries.
Josh Acosta, owner of Pepe’s Towing Services, who filmed the explosion with a drone, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But he apparently plans to post more videos: “Full videos on YouTube are going to go crazy!!!” he wrote.
Omar Shakir contributed to this story
