Three weeks after an accident, a Tesla catches fire

After being in a junkyard for three weeks, a Tesla Model S, destroyed in an accident, caught fire, according to a report published by Sacramento firefighters and relayed by NBC and Teslarati. In a video posted on social networks, we can clearly see the electric vehicle totally in flames and releasing thick clouds of smoke.

And the firefighters had a hard time putting out this fire, due to the residual heat from the Tesla battery, which kept rekindling the flames. The firefighters therefore had to dig a pit in order to lower the car into it, before submerging it in water and thus stopping the fire. Note that the vehicle had not caught fire, three weeks earlier, at the time of its accident.

Fortunately, no one was injured and this is the first time Sacramento firefighters have faced a Tesla fire. While Elon Musk’s firm recently assured that Tesla fires were 11 times less frequent than those of other vehicles, some other recent incidents nevertheless remain worrying. As Insideevs recalls, a Tesla Model 3 caught fire in late May while parked in California City. Meanwhile, around the same time, a Model Y caught fire while its owner was driving on a road in Vancouver, Canada. National highway safety, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), contacted Tesla to request information.