Electric car fire breaks out at Carmel dealership

CARMEL, Ind. — The Carmel Fire Department responded to an electric car fire at a local dealership over the weekend.

According to a post on CFD’s Facebook page , crews were called to the dealership’s maintenance department after receiving a report about an active fire alarm that caused sprinklers to deploy. When firefighters arrived at the scene, they found heavy smoke blanketing the maintenance department.

Photos courtesy of the Carmel Fire Department.

Officials balanced the fire alarm and located the source of the fire — an electric vehicle with its hood up on one of the dealership’s maintenance lifts.

CFD indicated that its crews mostly extinguished the fire while the car was still on the lift. Crews lowered the car off the lift, placed it on wheel dollies and used manpower and a forklift to move it outside the building.

Firefighters moved the car off the lift and out of the building because extinguishing fires generated by lithium ion batteries like those used in electric cars can be difficult.

The car fire reignited after crews moved it out of the building.

Once firefighters extinguished the blaze for a second time, the car was put on flatbed truck and escorted to the salvage yard by a CFD engine.

One firefighter stepped into a mechanic’s pit on accident during the incident, sustaining a slight injury. No other cars were affected by the fire, though officials are unsure whether or not the other vehicles in the maintenance area were damaged by the smoke or sprinklers that deployed.

CFD is still investigating the cause of the blaze. A spokesperson for the department confirmed the car was not charging before it caught fire.

As of this article’s publication, no additional information on the incident had been made available.

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