◀ Anchor ▶
The Tesla electric car that hit the median strip was engulfed in flames and eventually exploded.
Fortunately, passersby joined in to save the driver before the explosion.
It is very difficult to put out an electric car fire because of the thermal run of the battery, but this time, 50 firefighters stuck together and managed to put it out in 1 hour and 20 minutes.
Reporter Kim Ji-hye covered the story.
◀ Report ▶
National road in Sejong City late at night.
As a car crashes into the median, huge sparks fly in all directions.
The vehicle immediately burst into flames.
However, one is approaching the fierce flames that are about to erupt at any moment.
When the driver could not get out of the burning Tesla electric car, passing citizens came to the rescue.
[목격자]
“It looked like 3 or 4 people were saving people by breaking windows and using fire extinguishers. It’s a situation where the patient (driver) sets his leg on fire when taking out the glass while treating him as this with his bare hands.”
Citizens manage to open the backseat door and get the driver out and onto the road.
The electric car exploded soon after.
[목격자]
“The car exploded 20 to 30 seconds after I rescued the person. The person who helped me said hello for a while and left. I think his hand was bleeding.”
The driver is being treated for burns in hospital, but is understood to be non-life threatening.
The fire was barely extinguished in about an hour and 20 minutes with 17 fire extinguishers and 50 personnel, but the car was completely burnt.
It is estimated that the impact on the battery of the electric vehicle caused a thermal run when the temperature rose to over 1,000 degrees in an instant.
[이호근/대덕대 자동차학과 교수]
“(Electric vehicle) If a fire happens once, it cannot be controlled due to thermal runaway, and the damage of secondary and tertiary damage and spread is so great that this is scary…”
Three days ago, at the Tesla service center in Seoul, a fire suddenly broke out in an electric car parked at the Tesla service center, and it was extinguished in three hours.
This is Kim Ji-hye from MBC News.
Video coverage: Shin Gyu-ho (Daejeon) / Video provision: Viewers / Sejong Fire Department
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