I was really hoping for a different type of ICE car to be on fire...
this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2026
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Same ... I thought people were setting fire to ICE vehicles.
Yeah I was Hella confused reading this article. Was hoping some hero lobbed a molotov at the fascists.
I had to read the article when I noticed the license plate, though blurred, is absolutely not an American one.
It's not that odd.
Gasoline and diesel cars have been around and commonly used for 100 years. Every fire station from New York to obscure towns in Arkansas have the equipment to deal with burning hydrocarbons.
Not many fire departments have the equipment handy to put out a battery fire. Some bigger departments do, but not all.
So when Jim Bob puts his truck in the ditch and catches it on fire after a Saturday night at the bar, the local volunteer FD can just roll over there and put it out. But when someone's EV catches fire, oftentimes all that the local FD can do is make sure the fire doesn't spread to houses or grass or trees in the area, and the car has to burn all the way down.
ICE fires get the attention they deserve, the difference between an ICE fire and a BEV fire is in the scale and intensity and the fact that a lithium battery fire is impossible to stop with normal firefighter equipment.
BEV fires are orders of magnitude more dangerous and lethal.
Have you ever heard of anyone dying because their ICE car caught fire? This is an issue especially with Tesla, where the manual handles are hidden, preventing people from getting out quickly enough.
In case of a BEV fire, you only have seconds to exit the car, otherwise you are toast.
PS:
Just in case someone thinks I'm making anti BEV propaganda, I own a VW ID.4 which I am very happy with.
PPS:
My wife once had an ICE car go on fire on her, after going 170 km/h on Autobahn in a tiny 1.1 L car. 😋 but it was easily handled with the fire extinguisher she had in the car, it was taken to a garage, and with new cables and a new battery, the car was fine to use again.
Have you ever heard of anyone dying because their ICE car caught fire?
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I haven't seen the evidence to suggest that BEV fires are orders of magnitude more dangerous, as you claim. I have seen the evidence to suggest that they are orders of magnitude less likely.
Yes they burn hotter and are harder to extinguish, but I understand that generally they spread slower and with more warning, allowing greater time for escape (unless you are stuck in a Tesla and haven't read the manual cover to cover).
ICE cars are more likely to explode, BEV cars take longer (in general) to become fully engulfed.
If there is a credible evidence source / study looking at fatalities per fire (which corrects for the stupid door handles) then I'd be very interested to read it.
Do y'all keep fire extinguishers in y'all's cars in DE?
I'm from Denmark but no, it's pretty rare, but in this case it meant it was a relatively minor fix to get the car going again.
Ah yes, the ECE: externally combusting engine.
Reminds me of some good media literacy advice. If you see something bad happen on the news it's probably not worth worrying about because if it were common they wouldn't be reporting it. It's overwhelmingly likely that whatever kills you will be boring.
Its new, needs special equipment which isnt yet standard issue, and burns unstoppably and more ferociously. A fuel tank doesn’t burst into flames if it is pierced. A battery does, and it escalates rapidly.
Most ICE fires come from broken fuel lines which are under 30-60 psi of pressure, spraying fuel air mixture over a hot exhaust manifold.
Lemmy is like Reddit, lots of opinions from people who have no idea how cars work and they think that if it's not in media, it didn't happen.
The bigger issue is that every fire department has the equipment to put out a gasoline fire, but not many of them have the equipment to put out a battery fire.
A lithium battery does, and it escalates rapidly
FTFY
Lithium iron phosphate doesn't typically combust when punctured, so I think you'd still need to add a qualification to that statement.
Lithium iron phosphate doesn’t typically combust when punctured
no, it just releases a toxic gas. Hydrogen fluoride and that is horrific even at low concentrations.
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A fuel tank often does burst into flames if it is torn open and sprays fuel into the air or on the ground, though. Watch enough NASCAR and you’ll see it for yourself.
It's also true that explosions are far more likely to occur in an ICE fire than EV fire - EVs tend to smoke and then slowly burn to a more ferocious fire, but in general provide more warning and time to escape than ICE fires (as well as being less likely to happen in the first place). ICE fuel is designed to explode (especially gas / petrol).
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My 97 jetta did this in my 20s.
It's odd how electric car fires get attention, while petrol is famously non-combustible.
BMW just announced another fire recall.
These cars all have highly pressurized fuel systems and more and more cheap plastic parts connecting them that are designed to fail within a set number of heat cycles. When the plastic cracks, high pressure atomized fuel sprays all over a hot engine. This has been a problem for 15 years, and still plastic connectors are normal.
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