Last Tuesday, the Morning Midas cargo ship caught fire and is still burning. The 600-foot carrier, with over 3000 vehicles on board, was en route from Yantai, China, to Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico. The fire broke out when the ship was 340 miles southwest of Adak, Alaska.
Shipboard fires are inherently dangerous, but the Morning Midas fire was complicated by the almost 800 full and hybrid electric vehicles among its cargo. In a fire, the lithium-ion batteries in EVs experience thermal runaway, an unstable chemical reaction that produces an enormous amount of heat. In a motor vehicle crash, a single EV can take hours and thousands of gallons of water to extinguish. In addition, onboard fire suppression systems, which rely on depriving fire of oxygen, are ineffective against thermal runaway.
The crew of the Morning Midas nonetheless attempted to extinguish the fire before finally abandoning ship in a life raft. A nearby vessel rescued all 22 crew members, with no reported injuries. The United States Coast Guard conducted a flyover of the ship and confirmed the fire was ongoing.
Zodiac Maritime, which manages the ship, has sent a firefighting tug and salvage vessels to the North Pacific to assess the situation and recover whatever is left of the ship and its contents. The ships are expected to arrive on Monday, June 9th, almost a week after the fire. The company continues to track the ship's location via satellite but is unable to monitor shipboard conditions remotely.
Previously:
• Electric vehicle 'spontaneously combusts' on California freeway. Oh, you know the brand.
• Fire breaks out at Tesla factory with 'history of frequent fires' reported
• Tesla Fire tracks the company's spontaneous combustion problem
