Lithium batteries catch fire in shipping container at Port of Montreal

Firefighters responded on Monday night to a lithium battery fire at the Port of Montreal.

The fire started around 3:15 p.m. on September 23 inside of a shipping container containing more than 33,000 pounds of lithium batteries located on the ground inside the port facility.

The fire sent up a large amount of smoke, prompting the City of Montreal to issue a lockdown order for residents. People living inside the Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough near the port were told to stay inside with door and windows shut and to shut off external ventilation systems. The lockdown order was lifted around 10:30 p.m. on Monday.

CTV News reports that Montreal firefighters opted to soak the exterior of the shipping container with water rather than try to enter the container due to safety concerns.

The fire was largely contained by around 10 p.m.

A firefighter suffered a minor knee injury while battling the blaze at the port.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

“The main problem with the lithium battery is that the lithium battery is able to produce its own heat, so when it gets on fire it produces a lot of heat which ignites the next battery. And as lithium batteries are made in series, these batteries are small. That’s why these battery fires are hard to put out. The only way we have to put it out is to put water on it so we can cool down all the batteries and stop that chain reaction,” Division Fire Chief Martin Guilbault told the Montreal Gazette .

Battery fires have been a hot topic of late — an August crash near Emigrant Gap in Placer County, California, involving a lithium battery-powered Tesla Semi shuttered a portion of I-80 for 15 hours and required 50,000 gallons of water to knock down the post-crash battery fire. A September 17 crash near Indian Springs, Nevada, closed US 95 for several hours due in part to the fact that a semi truck involved was hauling a load of lithium ion batteries which caught fire after the crash.

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