Florida State Fire Marshal Jimmy Patronis on Twitter wrote, “There’s a ton of EVs disabled from lan. As those batteries corrode, fires start. That’s a new challenge that our firefighters haven’t faced before. At least on this kind of scale”. In Naples, Florida alone, there have been four reports of Tesla fires since Hurricane Ian struck.

EV fires have always posed problems for firefighters. The energy stored in the batteries doesn’t dissipate over time. “So you have the stored energy in the batteries,” Stephen Gollan with Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue told News Nation. “Just because the vehicle is submerged doesn’t mean the energy is discharged in any way. Anytime you mix electrical components and salt water together, it is a recipe for disaster.”