Watch what it’s like to handle an overturned truck full of burning batteries

A motortruck afloat of lithium-ion batteries was knocked implicit adjacent the Port of Los Angeles connected September 26th, exploded, and was near to pain for days — interrupting postulation connected highways, a bridge, and shutting down larboard terminals. A section towing company, Pepe’s Towing Service, caught the detonation connected camera and vlogged the incidental for days, until it was clip for them to haul the remnants away.

Pepe’s Tow Service proprietor Josh Acosta uploaded a lengthy video contiguous chronicling the constituent of explosion, the agelong hold arsenic the Fire Department fto the batteries burn, and the process of lifting the instrumentality afloat of burnt batteries to transport. In the video, we spot what looks similar stacks of batteries with liquid cooling pipes betwixt each layer.

In a telephone telephone with The Verge, Acosta says the artillery is 1 “giant container-sized battery” that “does not travel apart.” He believes it could beryllium utilized successful buildings for backup power. According to Acosta, the artillery weighed 60,000 pounds.

Acosta says helium doesn’t retrieve which institution owns the instrumentality that transported the artillery — but his video blurs retired substance connected the broadside of the instrumentality anyhow.

The video shows the painstaking logistics for firefighters dealing with burning lithium-ion cells — they often request to usage thousands of gallons of water to enactment these out, including connected electric vehicle fires. And successful this lawsuit the Los Angeles Fire Department told The Verge that the occurrence kept going connected and off.

Acosta told america helium was called to the occupation by the lawsuit who owns the overturned truck, and that's wherefore helium caught the infinitesimal connected camera. Now, Pepe's Towing is hauling the remnants of the instrumentality for scrap recycling.