A fire at Frank Kent Cadillac in Fort Worth, Texas, destroyed six electric SUVs that appear to be the $127,000-plus Cadillac Escalade IQ, along with damaging two other vehicles. The blaze took 17 hours and 33 minutes to control, starting during the day and continuing into the evening.
The Fort Worth Fire Department has not said what caused the fire, but it described the challenge of containing an EV blaze, which can burn hotter than a typical fire and is exceptionally difficult to extinguish partly because battery packs are so well sealed.
The fire broke out earlier this week at the dealership lot, where dozens of other cars were parked nearby. Crews used large volumes of water and placed special blankets over the vehicles to limit the flames while moving nearby cars away from the scene. Had the fire spread to the rest of the lot or the dealership building, the damage could have been far worse.
No one was injured. Frank Kent Cadillac thanked local firefighters on Facebook, writing that their quick response brought the fire under control before it could reach neighbouring businesses or surrounding grassland.
EV fires burn hot and resist extinguishing
The local fire department notes that EV fires can burn much hotter than the average fire, and that the sealed construction of battery packs makes them exceptionally hard to put out. That difficulty is why the response ran to nearly 18 hours rather than the hour or so a conventional car fire might demand.
The episode is a reminder of a trade-off buyers rarely see in showroom brochures. EV fires occur far less often than fires in combustion-powered cars, but when one starts, the sealed battery pack that protects the cells in a crash also slows the crews fighting the fire.
Patents point to faster battery rescue
Stellantis has recently filed a patent showing a way to quickly separate a damaged battery from the vehicle, a sign manufacturers are working on the containment problem the Fort Worth crews faced. A patent is no guarantee of production hardware, but it shows where the industry's thinking is heading.
For dealership operators, the practical lesson is spacing and preparation. The Fort Worth fire stayed contained to eight vehicles because crews could isolate it; a denser lot or a hotter day could have told a different story.
