The cause of the fire is probably to be found in an errant forklift that tore a hole in a container filled with battery materials.
It took 100 firefighters over 7 hours to put out a fire in some materials for electric car batteries at General Motors electric car factory in Detroit back last December.
The fire broke out at the factory, also known as Factory Zero, when a forklift went astray and damaged a container of materials for electric car batteries.
This is written by Crain's Detroit Business .
According to the media, fires had already broken out in five places when the firefighters arrived at the factory. It is estimated that the broken battery packs cost GM 1 million dollars, equivalent to almost 7 million kroner. In addition, the fire has left damages amounting to 300,000 dollars in the factory itself.
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The Detroit fire department says to the media that they were called out to the factory a total of 8 times between the summer and December of last year.
Right now, the emergency services are therefore working together with General Motors, so that fire safety at the site can be improved.
– Fires in electric car batteries are a new threat that we must deal with as a country right now. We are currently working with Factory Zero on a better plan in that regard.
– It drains our resources if we have to have people from four, eight or maybe 12 departments on fires in the factory area.
– That is why we are working together on a solution that makes Factory Zero better able to handle batteries that catch fire, says the emergency department.
According to General Motors spokesperson Tara Kuhnen, the car brand contacts the local fire department regardless of the size of a fire. At the same time, she emphasizes that not all calls to the fire authorities recently have been about fires in electric car batteries.
