An electric vehicle fire at Edmonds’ Campbell Auto Group dealership drew a large response from firefighters Thursday morning.
According to South County Fire, the vehicle fire was reported around 10 a.m. in an unoccupied electric car at the dealership at SR 104 and Highway 99. The car was engulfed in smoke in the middle of a parking lot about 50 feet away from any buildings.
Firefighters cooled the fire with water streams and used a new tool — an EV fire blanket – to cover the car to contain toxic fumes. No one was injured. The Washington State Department of Ecology was notified of potential water runoff impacts. The cause of the fire is unknown at this time.
The car was later loaded on a flat-bed tow truck and moved to a nearby lot where the car dealer stores inventory. Firefighters monitored the car throughout the afternoon and recommended the blanket be left on the car for several days to prevent reignition.
Because fires in vehicles powered by lithium-ion batteries can be difficult to extinguish, can reignite and produce toxic smoke, this call was upgraded to a second-alarm hazardous materials incident, South County Fire said. The response included 15 fire units, including a hazardous materials truck, and more than 30 firefighters. The agency noted that significantly more than the response to a fire in a non-electric vehicle, which typically requires one fire engine with a crew of three. It’s important to let dispatchers know if a car fire involves an electric vehicle so they can send extra help.
Shoreline Fire assisted with this response, South County Fire said.
I’m wondering if now the City of Edmonds or the “Fire Department” (not sure of its actual name) now pays all those additional fire trucks and personnel who were drawn from their other localities. How does it work when resources and personnel are activated from outside the City of Edmonds? Or from or to any locality? What then happens if their is a need for additional fire personnel/vehicles in their home localities while they are deployed outside their areas?
Hi Tracy — there may be others here who can offer more details but for both South County Fire and local police departments, they have mutual aid arrangements where first responders from other municipalities assist neighboring cities when they are able. — Teresa
Hi Teresa, I just realized all the responses were going into my junk mail folder… Is there somewhere I can find out about these “mutual aid agreements”? I’ve wondered about this for a while and I don’t know where to ask. Do they spell out payments to the people who go outside of their service area? In this instance, perhaps the other units were there for training as someone suggested. Does anyone know who I could ask about this issue?
Hi Tracy. In the case of the fire service, because we contract with South County Fire, our contract spells out some conditions related to mutual aid among cities that requires us to add more staffing if we have more calls coming into Edmonds. See the story when we amended our contract for that reason here. https://myedmondsnews.com/2022/01/council-oks-amended-fire-services-agreement-pauses-marina-beach-park-project/. For police departments, I am not sure any payment changes hands when they help each other out.
Hi Teresa,
I pulled up the article. All very interesting. Thanks for pointing it out to me.. I just sent off a quick email to the Chief of South County Fire suggesting he assign my question to a more appropriate person. I’ll be interested to see the response as nothing I can find online gives any specifics about monetary compensation although the standard mutual aid agreement (not sure where to find the one that Edmonds uses) does suggest that there could be compensation.
Hi Teresa,
The wonderful South County Fire Chief Robert Eastman called me right back. He said they just help each other as the normal course of business, no money changes hands. The Department has distributed the blankets they used on this electric car fire around the county and this was the first time they had actually used one. Also, in this fire they needed to keep people back from the fire and its toxic fumes, so part of their response was for crowd control. Anyway kudos to Fire Chief Eastman, South County fire personnel and all the fire crews in the area. They are out there all the time keeping us safe…
Thanks for the update, Tracy.
30 firefighters and 15 units, EV’s require more resources and specialized training for firefighters, which can drive up costs. Get your checkbook ready, with the increase in electric vehicles Fire Department levies are going to substantially increase.
Is anyone willing to explain exactly what the 14 additional units provided? Or why we are being so coy as to the name of the dealership? Battery or chemical fires have been previously uncommon and this may simply have been used as a training exercise? One truck, properly equipped, should be able to contain a chemical fire.
It was Campbell Auto Group. We added that.