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Comment by adamors | Hacker News Reader

Electric vehicles can generate temperatures of nearly 4,900 degrees when they burn[1], that's what's different.

[1]: https://www.kttc.com/2022/09/01/iowa-firefighters-express-co...

In the end they say ICE cars catch fire more than EVs. In my European country older diesel cars catch fires and burn quite regularly unfortunately.

EV fires are a PITA to put out, this one needed thousands of gallons of water.

You can't smother a lithium battery fire with anything, it will continue to burn even underwater. Your only option is to cool the battery to a point where its below the point of combustion. And that takes considerable time and a lot of water.

This is also happening to relatively new cars not some 30 year old piece of junk.

Isn't water the wrong solution then? In the fire triangle of fuel-temperature-oxidizer, you can also take away the oxidizer using foam, can't you?

Yes. Water is also a very poor choice for gasoline fires.

At least the battery will mostly stay in one place, rather than floating off on the surface of the water, possibly setting things on fire at a considerable distance from the original source.

I'm not seeing a source for that figure, or even whether it's F or C.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA238154.pdf (pdf link)

says that lithium burning in air reaches a maximum temperature of about 1,000 C (about 1,800 F).

https://www.thoughtco.com/flame-temperatures-table-607307

says that various hydrocarbons (butane, candles, ethane, methane) produce pretty much the same temperature range when burned in air.

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