Edhat Staff
By the edhat staff
A hybrid vehicle caught fire in Los Alamos and destroyed another vehicle on Monday morning.
At 6:15 a.m., Santa Barbara County firefighters responded to the 9100 block of Highway 101, the parking lot of the Skyview Motel.
Crews arrived and found two vehicles fully involved in fire. They suspect the first vehicle, a Toyota Prius hybrid, sparked the fire in its battery cell and spread to an unknown type of vehicle parked next to it.
The fire was extinguished at 6:51 a.m. Both vehicles were completely destroyed, but there was no fire extension to the hotel and no reported injuries.
The official cause is under investigation.
Photo: SBCFD
[Ed Note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly listed the day as Sunday evening. This has been corrected above.]
Certainly, the threat of fire is what keeps many people away from purchasing these “eco” vehicles. I’ve had dozens of cars over the years and never had one of them spontaneously have burned to the ground like these seem to do on a quite regular basis. Aside from these e-vehicles, the only other car that would burn down regularly were the 60s/70s Volkswagen hatchback (oil would pool up on the top part of the engine and ignite…or something like that). I’ll continue to buy gas guzzlers as long as possible, and hopefully by the time I am forced to buy an electric car maybe they will be safe and not catch fire all the time.
why is this “news”? cars catch fire every day, all over the country/world.
Ugh, great. Cue the green haters in 3…2…1…….
“See? Green is evil! Liberal cars are now attacking innocent gas-powered cars!”
LOL i figured that was why its been posted, Sac…but really. if this is “news”, then we have far bigger problems….
The “news” IS that fighting a conventional vehicle fire (gas/diesel) is entirely different than the hazards and extinguishment of electric vehicles, namely hazardous materials that need to be addressed once a difficult extinguishment is mitigated.
COAST – sure, that makes sense – fighting different materials requires different techniques. Not sure that changes anything though and also, this was a hybrid, not electric, vehicle. Electric vehicles are FAR safer in terms of fires than gas or hybrid. https://www.autoweek.com/news/a38225037/how-much-you-should-worry-about-ev-fires/
See? Channelfog gets it!