Belgium FFs Submerge Burning Hybrid Car in Container

Firefighters in Leuven, Belgium posted photos of their approach to cooling battery cells after a hybrid vehicle.&

When crews were called to the car fire, they "found a strong smoke development, which pointed to the battery's thermal runaway" which caused the battery cell temperatures to rise. Shortly after, the smoke turned to fire and the crew knocked down the fire.

The department posted the next steps to cool the battery cells on their Facebook page: they "refrigerated the vehicle abundantly and placed it in a special #waterdipping container."

They loaded the vehicle into a special container with filled with water using a crane.

The container was placed in a remote parking lot. As soon as the vehicle has completely cooled down, a branch service will remove it from the container and transport it towards scrap dealer. Not for the sake of immersion, but because a car like this is completely destroyed when the battery catches on fire anyway," the department posted on Facebook.

The contaminated water from the container was collected to be examined after the vehicle was removed and hauled off to a scrap yard.