By Karen Kucher
The San Diego Union-Tribune
ESCONDIDO, Calif. — A fire inside a San Diego Gas & Electric battery storage facility in Escondido on Thursday ignited lithium-ion batteries in a storage container, prompting the evacuation of about 500 businesses and classes to be canceled Friday at nearby schools.
Firefighters responded to a ringing alarm and report of smoke shortly before 12:10 p.m. at the facility on Enterprise Street near Commercial Street, Escondido Fire Division Chief Tyler Batson said. They found a fire burning in one of the battery storage units, which he described as being about the size of a trailer.
After consulting with SDG&E’s fire coordinator and the company’s contracted fire agency, as well as San Diego city and county hazardous materials officials, firefighters decided to let the batteries burn themselves out. Crews sprayed water on neighboring storage containers to keep them cooled down and to prevent the fire from spreading, Batson said.
“The unit with the batteries on fire, it is best to let those burn,” Batson said. “We don’t want to introduce water to the battery fire. It creates a much bigger problem, and it doesn’t ultimately put it out anyway.”
Batson said an evacuation order was sent to businesses nearby — an area bound by Auto Park Way, Enterprise Street, West Mission Road and Alpine Way. Batson said no homes were affected.
Late Thursday, the Escondido Union School District announced on its website that some schools would not open for classes Friday “out of an abundance of caution.” The Carolyn Gilbert Education Center, the Del Dios Academy of Arts and Sciences and Rock Springs Elementary schools will be closed on Friday, while Limitless Learning will only offer virtual instruction and cancel on-campus activities.
“All other schools remain open,” the district said. “We are monitoring the fires in the area and expect normal operations at all sites to resume on Monday.”
Fire officials have been told the fire could go on for 12 to 48 hours “until it burns itself out,” Batson said.
“It flares up to some pretty decent amount of flames and then as it goes from one battery rack to another, inside that storage unit, it will ignite again and go for a while,” he said. “The fire is kind of running its course inside that individual unit.”
He called the evacuations “really precautionary.”
“Right now the amount of smoke being put off by what’s on fire seems pretty small and is dissipating really fast,” he said. “But we did evacuate a pretty large area in the commercial area of Escondido as a precaution.”
He said the cause of the fire is under investigation.
An SDG&E official said the fire was limited to one of 24 battery storage containers at the 30-megawatt facility. Advanced fire suppression systems at the site were activated immediately.
“There are no reported injuries and emergency responders are on scene,” spokesperson Anthony Wagner said. “SDG&E is working with first responders to ensure safety of our employees and the community and will be conducting a thorough review of the event to determine the cause of the incident.”
Lithium-ion battery fires present a dangerous new risk to the public and the fire service. In the video below, Gordon Graham shares tips on how to approach these fires.
In May, a fire ignited at the Gateway Energy Storage facility in an industrial park in Otay Mesa, prompting evacuation orders for nearby businesses.
That blaze was centered in one of the seven buildings at the 250-megawatt site that stores lithium-ion batteries to help bolster the state’s electric grid. It burned for 16 days before that last unit cleared the scene May 31.
Cal Fire officials estimated that crews sprayed 8 million gallons of water onto the site. The county’s hazmat team tested water runoff and took air samples, and no toxic levels were reported. The Gateway facility is owned and operated by LS Power and its subsidiary, Rev Renewables. The cause of that fire remains under investigation.
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