U.S. fire departments responded to an estimated average of 152,300 automobile fires per year in 2006-2010. These fires caused an average of 209 civilian deaths, 764 civilian injuries, and $536 million in direct property damage.
Cars commonly catch on fire from electrical issues, overheating, malfunctioning or negeglected maintenance on transfer cases or transmissions. We get a car fire at least once a month. This average increases during the summer and does not count semitrucks/trailer fires.
I'm a firefighter for my county that includes ~ 30mi of interstate along a national corridor. DOT has estimated 11,000 vehicles pass through our county each day on this corridor.
Out of curiosity, how many of those would you say were cars less than a few years old? That more than anything is what catches my attention about this story — anecdotally, I’ve seen car fires on the highway, but always older cars, and a Tesla seems like it shouldn’t have had time to accrue that degree of wear and tear and deferred maintenance. But I’m curious what someone with more data points makes of it.
Wow a firefighter on HN?! Awesome. What upcoming firefighting tech excites you/seems promising? Know any interesting firefighting tech startups? What is a big problem in the firefighting space that you think tech can solve/disrupt? Thanks for your time!
My sister had an older Nissan Altima burst into flames on the freeway while driving in a straight line at 70mph. Judging from the number of scorched sections of pavement and subsequent burned grass along the highway I see on a weekly basis, I'd wager this isn't uncommon.
Sure it's an anecdote but your comments here seem to believe this is impossible or incredibly uncommon with ICE vehicles. It's not. Watch along the freeway for burned sections at the edge, with the scorch marks being about the size of a car. The reason you don't hear about it is it's not news when an ICE car burns to the ground, since it happens so often. It's news when a Tesla burns because people want a reason to be scared of something new and flashy.
The only assumption I made was that, in their view, ICE cars don't catch on fire often. I make no assumptions as to why they hold that view. You're the one assuming bad faith with my comment.
On the other hand, it's quicker to Google "car catches fire" or even "how often do cars catch on fire" than it is to post a question here then wait for comments then reply back doubling down on the question. The answer to the question isn't an anecdote or an opinion, it's a statistic and it can be verified quite easily. There's very little good faith to be assumed when someone expresses their opinion that only electric cars can catch on fire.
> The only assumption I made was that, in their view, ICE cars don't catch on fire often.
Yes, you assumed something beyond the question, and you applied a view to it.
> You're the one assuming bad faith with my comment.
No, your comment is just rude by giving the commenter a view point just for asking a question. Whatever your intent, it was rude, and you should apologize and not do it again.
Heard super cars like Ferrari and Lambos catch on fire. Looks like adhesives are prone to catching on fire for some of these accidents, but others unknown.
Heh, I used to drive Lambo Murcielago and it once almost caught fire - the rear plastic parts ended up completely melted. It was giving me signals when I couldn't suddenly go faster than 120kph, some people were also overtaking me with weird looks (I guess they saw fire or something). It seemed to extinguish itself though and later I could go over 300kmh. When I went refueling, I saw the damage and that was it.
No, but the activities that led to the fire were. There was no accident, there was no impact of any kind. It was a question, not a condemnation. When is the last time an ICE car burst into flames during normal operation?
It happens surprisingly regularly, but it doesn't get reported by the BBC. I was driving through Portland OR ~4 weeks ago and noticed an RV pull of the side of I5 southbound with the engine smoking. After a few minutes, flames were leaping from the engine compartment. I didn't see any indication that there had been an accident (no body damage, etc), so I assume there was no impact.
Its not surprising really, ICEs are powered and lubricated by highly flammable liquids. They are certainly very reliable these days, but fire is still a failure mode.
