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Fire brigade during an operation (symbol image)
Photo: Toni Lehder / lausitznews / IMAGO
In Hesse, an electric car first caught fire and then set fire to a two-family house.
The incident happened in Neuhof near Fulda on Sunday night.
For reasons that are still unclear, the car, which was parked in a garage next to the house, initially caught fire.
The residents of the house and neighbors were woken up by a loud bang, the police said.
Despite the rapid intervention of the fire brigades from various nearby towns, around 50 firefighters could not prevent the fire from spreading to the house and burning it out completely.
"Unfortunately, the affected residential building became uninhabitable due to the fire and the extinguishing work," it said in a statement.
A second car was also destroyed.
Nobody got hurt.
But the property damage is in the range of several hundred thousand euros.
The extinguishing work was made more difficult because a photovoltaic system was installed on the roof.
The electric car had to be taken out of the garage by a special salvage company.
According to a report in the "Bild" newspaper, it should be an Audi e-tron.
He was transported to an extinguishing pool, where the fire in the completely destroyed car was brought under control.
There was initially no official information as to why the car caught fire.
Burning electric cars have been a problem for firefighters for a long time, although the risk of fire with electric cars is no higher than with vehicles with combustion engines.
There is a risk of a so-called thermal runaway, in which the fire in the battery jumps from one cell to the next.
Thousands of liters of water are needed to extinguish and cool the cars.
The fire brigade uses thermal imaging cameras to monitor whether there are still hot spots that could ignite again (read more about this here).
The batteries can theoretically ignite again up to 24 hours after the fire.
The fire brigade therefore demands that the car companies take care of the wrecks after a fire.
joe
