Posted by Leslie Eastman
As my colleague Mary Chastain reported in her post on the Waymo facility filled with riderless electric vehicles (EVs) and powered scooters that was set on fire during the Los Angeles riots, I have often noted that lithium battery fires are intense and challenging to extinguish.
There is another example to add to the collection of incidents related to lithium batteries. Last week, a British-managed, Liberian-flagged vessel named Morning Midas was traveling from Yantai, China, to Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico, carrying approximately 3,000 vehicles (750 to 800 of which were either fully electric or hybrid vehicles).
On route, while the ship was roughly 300–340 miles southwest of Adak, Alaska, a fire broke out on board. Smoke was initially observed emanating from the deck loaded with electric vehicles. The crew of 22 immediately attempted to suppress the fire using onboard systems but were unable to control it.
The cargo vessel has now been abandoned. And while no cause has been officially assigned, the lithium batteries are the prime suspect.
Photographs show the vessel still smoking hundreds of miles from the nearest coastline days after the initial distress signal was received. Thick columns of smoke can be seen billowing into the sky.
Incredibly, all 22 crew members were safely evacuated onto a lifeboat on Tuesday afternoon and later rescued by a nearby merchant vessel.
They remained aboard the rescue ship as of Thursday, the vessel’s management company, London-based Zodiac Maritime, said.
…The cause of the fire remains under investigation but lithium-ion batteries, widely used in electric vehicles, are known to present firefighting challenges due to their high combustibility once ignited.
Salvage crews are on their way.
A salvage team is expected to arrive early next week at the scene of a cargo ship that was carrying about 3,000 vehicles to Mexico when it caught fire in waters off Alaska’s Aleutian island chain.
A tug carrying salvage specialists and special equipment is expected to arrive at the location of the Morning Midas around Monday, the ship’s management company, London-based Zodiac Maritime, said Thursday. The crew will assess the ship’s condition, and a separate tug with firefighting and ocean towage capabilities is being arranged, the company said in its statement. In the meantime, officials are using the ship’s onboard satellite-connected systems to monitor it.
Legal Insurrection readers may recall that in 2023, I covered a similar fire aboard a ship called Fremantle Highway. The vessel spent a week burning on the North Sea while carrying thousands of cars, nearly 500 of which were reported to be electric vehicles (EVs), before finally being tugged into a Dutch port for salvaging (allaying fears that it could sink and impact shipping lanes).
After much wrangling and European regulatory drama, the boat was salvaged, renamed, and sold to China. The connection to the EVs and their lithium batteries on board was completely minimized.
A year after the devastating fire aboard the Japanese-owned car carrier Fremantle Highway, the salvaged portions of the vessel are set to start a new life. A court battle over the status of the salvaged vessel has been settled with the Dutch authorities agreeing to issue an export license for the hulk now known as Floor.
…The Floor has been moved to a North Sea anchorage and is waiting for a salvage tug which will tow it to Xiamen, China. Dutch media reports indicate the vessel has been acquired by Qingshan Shipyard Group which will complete the repairs in China.
A year after the devastating fire, the authorities are yet to release a final report. Initial speculation was that the electric vehicles caused the fire but later reports have downplayed that speculation Reports have said it appeared the fire began in other cargo areas.
Chemistry does not change, no matter how much the narratives are manipulated. Lithium battery fires will remain a significant fire response challenge unless their inherent chemistry changes.
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You could always “Pack” each EV into it’s own separate Fire/Heat proof container for shipping transport then if 1 goes up only 1 goes up and the fire can’t spread to others nearby.
Perhaps. Providing such containers certainly would increase shipping weight and volume.
Or you could decide not to tempt thermodynamics and not ship them in the first place. Gibbs and entropy are frequently spoilers of man’s best laid plans.
Lithium battery fire can burn through aluminum. I do not know about steel.
Of course, making such cannisters increases CO2 production, which (/sarc start) we all know is the ultimate evil of humanity (/sarc end).
Tungsten would probably work. It has the highest melting point of any element and is nearly twice as dense as lead. What’s not to like?
Cost.
Folks, my idea is based on my experience buying “seasoned” firewood in Ohio in the fall. Nothing burns that! Encase the EV in “seasoned” firewood for transport.
Oh Paul your issue is unrealistic expectations. When they say seasoned, they mean that immediately after cutting down the tree and splitting it, they sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper on it. Apparently you were laboring under the misapprehension that they were in some way talking about drying the wood. Now you know.
About as practical as outfitting every soldier with enough armor to keep him safe.
Oh wait, those are called tanks. Weigh 50+ tons apiece. I wonder how big and heavy something suitable to enclose EVs would be, considering the EV fires are self-sustaining and would probably burn through any container, or might increase the internal pressure so much that they would explode.
You’re not safe in a tank, either.
“Varied Survival Experiences: Even in modern conflicts, a tank’s survival on the front lines can range from a few hours to several days, depending on the specific circumstances.”
Hmmm, AI’s high estimate is several days. Let’s not try that.
Tanks are proving to be extremely unsafe in Russia’s current imperialist war against Ukraine.
To be fair, he didn’t say it was practical…
It would be a fairly straight-forward calculation. How much energy is packed into each battery pack? What is the expected peak temperature when the pack ignites? What is the contributory fuel load of the remaining vehicle components? Total energy released? Likely hot spots? How much insulation and what mass of container is required to keep the outer temperature of the enclosure low enough not to ignite the contents of any adjacent container?
Thus making an even larger bomb. Those containers would need to be hermetic and thus become pressure cookers.
Even if the former is not true, you would also need means to determine if something went amiss and have a lot of stuff in place to handle the bad container. And that would include bang and drop avoidance.
Just imagine what it would do to the price of Cheap Chinese Junk EVs
When I was a kid I remember unwrapping and “inch and half” firecracker.
I made a little pile of the silverish powder inside and used the fuse to light it.
There was a bright flash but no bang.
The paper wrapping contained the “flash” enough to make the bang once the pressure built up enough to break through the paper wrapping.
Shipping each EV in its own sealed container?
Best to just load them on a barge and tow them.
In the movie Armageddon:
“Imagine a firecracker in the palm of your hand. You set it off, what happens? You burn your hand, right? You close your fist around the same firecracker, and set it off. Your wife’s gonna be opening your ketchup bottles the rest of your life.”
— Ron Quincy, head of NASA research
And as soon as you see smoke from the barge, detonate some strategically placed charges and send the whole mess to the ocean depths.
Exactly opposite. Not hermetic, but with controlled smoke direction. Basically closed container with dedicated chimney.
You can not contain hot gas expansion. Just put them safely away.
I presume you’re being ironic.
Or ship the vehicles without the batteries installed. Auto manufacturers have done that with other auto parts forever.
China to Mexico via the Aleutian chain? Musta thunk the waters would be smoother rather than a more direct route. Figures it would be “Cheap” Chinese EVs En Flambe
This is known as Great Circle Navigation
Great-circle navigation or orthodromic navigation (related to orthodromic course; from Ancient Greek ορθός (orthós) ‘right angle’ and δρόμος (drómos) ‘path’) is the practice of navigating a vessel (a ship or aircraft) along a great circle. Such routes yield the shortest distance between two points on the globe.
It may also have been making stops in other N. American ports prior to its arrival in Mexico.
Imagine a plane slicing through the Earth that contains the origin and destination of the trip, plus the center of the Earth. The trace formed where the plane intersects the surface of the Earth is the great circle, and is the shortest route between the two points.
Looking in Google earth at the path they should have been almost 700 miles from Adak if making for the Canal still sounds like being off course
It’s a fascinating story. Great Circle navigation has been written about since at least the 16th century. As constant heading changes are required it was extremely difficult for sailing ships to actually use until the 19th century when navigation and sailing technologies improved. Profits in the tea trade for first cargoes of the new seasons tea made following an approximate Great Circle and trade wind routes a practical option. Once steam came on the scene wind was not important.
Here you go. Try greatcirclemap.com, use airport codes YNT and LZC. It’s for air travel, but illustrates that the shortest route would take it close to the Aleutian Islands.
Damn flat earthers…😄
I have not seen a heat signature on Zoom Earth or FIRMS for several days now.
The Aleutian Island arc goes pretty far south in the middle – the latitude of Adak is just a couple degrees north of Seattle.
Field test / Puncture test of a LiFePO4 cell (Large single cell) –
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07BS6QY3wI8
.
Note: It does not spew ‘fire’ like a straight Li-Ion cell would do, and requires atmospheric Oxygen for combustion (vs Li-Ion providing its own?) … and this is aside from its more docile behavior when mistreated (like overcharge, shorted etc conditions). The comments on that video provide some interesting insights too.
Those would make one chemistry superior to Li-Ion if you don’t consider other factors. Like why not run the Tesla on a potato dunked in a jar of vinegar?
The nasty chemical variants are not used because nobody wondered whether something less nasty could be used.
Peppered and fried in avocado oil would be nice.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/06/very-sad-grok-is-using-far-left-fact/
hide the decline ….
I will suggest that chemical batteries are dangerous in relation to their power density. I.E. , the more energy a battery can contain, the greater the danger. Chemical explosives contain both parts of the reaction, and the only difference is how fast the reaction takes place. Which can vary, as the detonating airbags showed.
Fully discharged, there’d be no power density, zero, isn’t that true?
So why aren’t they shipped that way?
TH did say “can contain”.
I think the chemical energy of these batteries is the major consideration. Discharged or charged the potential energy isn’t all that far apart. If something goes wrong, like water inclusion or high storage temperature, a fire can occur. One that doesn’t need atmospheric oxygen. There are plenty of battery fires with “discharged” batteries.
Tom brings up a point – these seems to be a power density threshold beyond which the likelihood of catastrophic failure rapidly increases. I’m sure the scientists and engineers that develop batteries understand this. It seems we consumers are left to figure this out from events.
I’m no battery expert but here’s my simple take. I know there are lots of design tricks of structure and chemical additives, but energy density will basically be relative to chemical component density. For a particular chemistry the only way to increase energy density is to decrease the volume (thickness) of the other components. Thus, as power density is increased, the mechanical and electrical fragility also increases. I suspect the tendency to fail is a very non-linear threshold relative to increasing the power density.
tell us about since we can’t see it
A ship exploding – Thunderbirds
Ah, Thunderbirds! Takes me back to my childhood…
Thunderbirds are GO
I presume the ship will be sunk or scuttled? Target practice for a sub? There will, of course, be a pollution source on the ocean floor in that location for a long time to come. Who pays? The Chinese or the Americans?
“Who pays? The Chinese or the Americans?”
The insurance company – meaning cost is socialized.
Ultimately borne on the wallet of the next virtuous fool who thinks buying Cheap Chinese Junk EVs is a sensible idea
Considering it was a Liberian-flagged ship, traveling from China to Mexico, US should not be involved.
Who pays for what? I don’t think there is a cost or fee for a ship sinking and polluting the ocean in international waters.
I wonder how much in the way of Fentanyl precursors were on board.
What about the drug cooker waiting in Mexico for his Fentanyl precursors? That guy’s having a bad week.
Is this an example of “eco-friendly”?
“The cargo vessel has now been abandoned.”
Nice, the first driverless cargo vessel!
“abandoned” means all the crew have been evacuated for safety. The owners have contracted with a salvage company (Resolve Marine) to take charge of the vessel and save it if possible. The first of three tugs reached it June 10 to find it still burning, but hull integrity intact. Two additional tugs have specialized fire-fighting capabilities and should arrive within the next 12 days (as of June 10).
The US Coast Guard continues to conduct helicopter overflights to monitor the ship.
Most recent update I could find is here.
Thanks for the update. Odd my local media never mentioned it at all.
They don’t have interior room…but an overhead crane that could pick up a smoking car and dump it over the side would save a lot of firefighting effort…
I’ll let you be the crane operator. I would rather not breathe the toxic pollutants.
Not really. The cars are parked very tightly on interior decks (many have 10 or more decks) with ramp access between decks. A car on fire many rows from the ramp can’t be moved without moving all of the cars (where to in the middle of the ocean?) out of the way.
Obvious answer. Fewer cars per boat.
/sarc
Fewer EV’s!
Zero Ev’s (not Net Zero, zero)
I know how to do this! Make a giant catamaran, with the cargo section in the middle. Fire starts? Drop the cargo and the ship is saved.
The Navy should sink it to protect the environment.
?????
Three things: First, it seems as if the risk of fire would be diminished if the car’s batteries were shipped without charge, or without a full charge. I know nothing of these things, so perhaps the cars are already prepped with greatly reduced charge until they reach the ultimate dealership location. From reading some of the other comments, it seems like there is still a substantial risk of fire, even if the battery is not fully charged.
Second, this provides a great opportunity for robot builders. Any ship with EV handling capability should have advanced robots that can monitor the status of every battery on the deck, and at the first sign of thermal cascade, the disposal robot could walk down a row of parked or stacked cars, extract the problem vehicle, pick it up and quickly walk it to a dump station where the vehicle could be dropped overboard, punching out its glass to keep the air in the main cabin from floating the vehicle. If the vehicle was already on fire or burning, the robot would of course need to be able to survive long enough to complete the disposal. All EV builders would obviously need to pay a hefty ocean pollution fine for every car dumped overboard.
Thirdly, perhaps transport insurers will insist all EVs need to be shipped without any battery pack installed at all, and the dealership would get the non-powered vehicles and then need to install battery packs prior to sale. The battery packs could be shipped separately with a much simpler robotic disposal system as outlined above. Of course the cost of this bifurcated shipping would obviously be much higher due to the expense of final vehicle assembly and the added risk of fire from the battery packs.
Now why did I think of Neo as he got flushed out of his jelly pod in the Matrix movie?
Yes possible with sodium ion batteries and, which can tolerate discharge to 0V. But not li-ion and Lifepo4, those are immediately permanently damaged when their voltage goes under some value.
“For every complex problem, there’s a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong”
Discharging Li-ion batteries to zero is classic example of this.
Plus, fires in EVs have many causes. Any short in the system, even a one originating not inside the batteries, may cause batteries to ignite.
I first checked several years ago into Matson’s requirements for shipping vehicles to Hawaii. Gas/Diesel vehicle fuel tanks must be between 1/8 and 1/4 full. EV’s should be fully charged. The most recent requirements have changed to 45% – 65% charged. See here.
Matson clearly believes fully-charged EVs are a greater hazard than half-charged ones.
I wonder what the extent of news coverage would be with an oil tanker on fire in the Pacific, offshore Alasks.
How many decades have internal combustion vehicles been shipped back and forth across the oceans?
There was at least one onboard the Titanic.
So that’s now three ships loaded with cars completely lost due to EV battery fires.
Reminds me of a song
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
Hey! They’re gonna sink yours too, another one bites the dust!
a week ago 4 people died in a fire started by a Lithium battery in one of those little electric thingies…
https://www.cnews.fr/faits-divers/2025-06-07/incendie-mortel-reims-le-feu-dune-rare-violence-cause-par-une-trottinette
story tip
a week ago 4 people died in a fire started by a Lithium battery in one of those little electric thingies…
https://www.cnews.fr/faits-divers/2025-06-07/incendie-mortel-reims-le-feu-dune-rare-violence-cause-par-une-trottinette
Looks like it has progressed to a burned out hulk. Savage is trying to tow it to port but apparently the weather is going to impede that. Here is Sal (the Real Deal) with his update
.
https://youtu.be/IZi4R1wf81E?si=QvTpqtrdAwMErV4m