VIDEO: Dozens of first responders from across Southern California gathered in San Bernardino to take part part in hands-on training with products from Tesla, including all of the company’s electric vehicles. The goal was to strengthen emergency preparedness in the age of electrification, because of the significant differences between responding to an electric vehicle fire as opposed to a fire burning in a vehicle with a traditional internal combustion engine.
“If (the fire) is above the floorboard, in the cabin, it’s the same fire,” said Gary Ashley, a retired firefighter who now works for Tesla. “But once it’s below the floorboard, that’s a different story. Because that’s where the battery is, between the wheel wells down low.” Firefighters learned that unless it’s a case where someone is trapped in the vehicle, or there’s the potential for the fire to spread to nearby structures or vegetation, it might be best to let the fire burn itself out.
It’s a concept that’s counterintuitive to most firefighters. “The strategy is to basically let it burn,” said Shawn Millerick, a fire captain with the San Bernardino County Fire Department. “But it’s hard for a fire department to stand there and just watch something burn, also it’s hard for the public to see us standing there and saying why aren’t they doing their job.” The training sessions were scheduled for Thursday and Friday at the San Bernardino Emergency Regional Emergency Training Center in San Bernardino.
