Ongoing wildfires in Los Angeles, California have been absolutely devastating. Dozens of people have perished in the flames and reportedly, more than 12,000 homes have burned to the ground. The scale of this devastation is hard to fathom, but there’s another troubling issue residents of the region have to contend with: charred electric vehicles and the poisonous smoke emitted by burning batteries.
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Noxious Fumes Are A Serious Danger
Obviously, a fire of this magnitude is going to produce immeasurable quantities of noxious gases, and the debris left behind by thousands of structures burned to the ground contain other toxins like asbestos, lead, mercury and even pesticides. Beyond all that, EV and energy-storage batteries are particularly concerning. Battery fires are incredibly difficult to put out, and their fumes contain numerous poisonous substances.
As per analytics firm StrategicRisk, when lithium-ion batteries burn they release “hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride and hydrogen cyanide, as well as carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and methane, among other dangerous chemicals.” You definitely don’t want to breathe any of that stuff.
The presence of these substances in the air and on the ground is delaying the return of people to their homes and properties, something that is making a terrible situation even worse.
There Were Hundreds Of Thousands Of EVs In The L.A. Area
According to Kelley Blue Book, EV sales last year eclipsed 1.3 million units in the U.S., accounting for around 8.1 percent of new vehicle deliveries. Undoubtedly, many of those electric cars, crossovers and trucks found a home in California.
Beyond that, the Financial Post reports that as of October 2024 there were more than 431,000 Tesla vehicles in service in the L.A. area. By a wide margin, Tesla is the EV sales champion in the U.S., but this is just one manufacturer. Audi, BMW, Ford, Hyundai, Volkswagen and other automakers build EVs as well, and you can bet many of their vehicles were burned in this fire, too, compounding the issue of noxious fumes and poisonous debris.
Stay Safe Out There
To protect residents, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health issued a warning on Wednesday about the removal of fire debris. People are prohibited from cleaning up or removing these materials from burned properties in certain areas. According to the department, “Fire debris must be safely removed to prevent more harm.” Individuals are, however, allowed to collect personal property from residential sites.
The initial cleanup of burned sites requires the removal of toxic materials including destroyed electric vehicle batteries. This will almost certainly be a monumental undertaking, but the broader cleanup and rebuilding of Los Angeles will take even more time and money. As reported by the Financial Post, six years after California’s Woolsey fire, only 182 single-family homes out of 363 have been approved to be rebuilt.
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