Fire instructor: 25,000 liters needed to extinguish EV fire

Instructor wouldn't buy an EV: needs 25,000 liters

In a classroom in Tarragona, during a mandatory chemical fire course for local industry workers, an instructor answered a question about electric cars. His response was a figure: 25,000 liters of water to control a burning EV, versus the 3,000 sufficient for a gasoline car. And a confession: he wouldn't buy one himself. The testimony, collected by a course attendee, challenges the usual narrative on electric vehicles. Because the number isn't about range or emissions. It's about water.

How much water is needed to control a burning electric car

According to this account, an electric car consumes about 25,000 liters to be controlled; a gasoline car, about 3,000. The difference is not minor. The EV does not go out, it cools down: the fire self-sustains and the recommendation is to let it burn while cooling it with water, which comes out contaminated. Standard extinguishers don't work: you can't put it out with CO2 because the battery produces its own oxidizer. Impossible to extinguish, only contain.

That is the key issue. In a combustion fire, you remove oxygen and it's over. In a lithium battery, the material itself manufactures oxygen. Spraying CO2 on it is like throwing water into the sea.

Why the battery is the entire floor of the car

The instructor added a detail often overlooked: vapors are highly toxic and, without protection, exposure is measured in seconds. Working nearby requires self-contained breathing apparatus, with a duration of about 20 minutes. Little margin.

An active firefighter confirmed the scenario firsthand. He recounted that after a battery fire, the vehicle taken to a quarantine container and flooded with water was still reacting 15 days later. Wastewater, loaded with lithium and cadmium, is removed via waste management tankers. Fire blankets, when available, are quickly consumed by the flames. He described a method to attack the battery: a hollow metal rod ending in a spike driven with a hammer into the weakest zone, between cells, to connect a water line. The theory looks great. In practice, not so much.

Parking garages nobody redesigned

Here lies the most uncomfortable point. The problem is known—reports arrive from the US and rest of Europe—and does not translate into construction regulations for parking lots, according to the course account. The instruction coming from above, he argues, is that electric is best, and everything else remains untouched.

There is another layer, according to another participant: EVs weigh more and, if they become the majority parked under buildings, floors will have to support 30% more load. No one talks about reinforcing structures or redoing basements. And on the horizon looms the scenario no one wants to name aloud: if a battery fire spreads in a closed underground garage, what is at stake is not just four cars' sheet metal.

E-scooters, blankets, and a lobby filtering bad news

The same risk, multiplied by low price, exists in electric scooters. They charge at home, with cheap and poorly maintained batteries, and fires usually start during charging. A cited case: a burning scooter ended up in a pool by order of the instructor himself, who considered it best despite the owner's complaint. In another part of the conversation, a news story was mentioned about the death of a 25-year-old man in Navarra when an electronic device he was charging exploded while he slept.

And the uncomfortable part: it is claimed there is a sort of lobby that does not tolerate bad news about EVs. The deployment for these emergencies is also incomplete. Supposed fire blankets are not in stations; only on some ferries.

The alternative that barely burns: LFP batteries

Not all signals point against them. According to a participant, lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries degrade less, are cheaper, and are practically impossible to ignite. Their drawback: lower energy capacity per kilo. On paper, the technical solution exists.

The problem, he argues, is that the shift towards them is driven by price, not safety, so no one imposes them for prevention reasons. And not everything is risks: some defend EVs for their lower noise pollution in cities, an argument easily supported by the noise of combustion engines in short gears.

The classroom conclusion stands: the one who warns wouldn't buy an EV, and sees danger "on another scale" even in hybrids, which combine gasoline and battery in the same chassis. Twenty minutes of air for those fighting the fire. Fifteen days of reaction for the already submerged car. With those two figures, the transition has a pending question that is not about the plug.