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SD firefighters fly in fire experts to tackle lithium battery fire still blazing from last week

By Olivia Murray

An unmitigated disaster, and a vision of what’s to come in this “green” new world order

On Wednesday, May 15th, Gateway Energy Storage Facility erupted into flames—it’s a San Diego battery storage in a border community—and firefighters contained the blaze before handing operations off to the facility’s own team. But by the very next day, the fire reignited and it’s been going ever since. We’re now on day nine, by the way.

Now, according to San Diego journalist Amy Reichert, the San Diego fire department has elected to fly in fire experts to “study” the fire because they have no idea how to manage the blaze, estimating that it may take another week or week-and-a-half to get the fire back under control—meanwhile, poisonous fumes from burning lithium batteries continue to spew into the air.

Here’s what Reichert said of the latest developments and the resources already consumed to attempt to manage the flames:

San Diego Firefighters have flown in experts to the Otay Mesa Battery Storage site to study the fire because they don't know how to extinguish it. The 🔥 has already consumed 5 million gallons of water, and firefighters estimate it will take an additional 7-10 days to control,… pic.twitter.com/sVi71XW1Vy
— Amy Reichert (@amyforsandiego) May 23, 2024

Now, back in 2012, a massive hotel in the Jantzen Beach area along the Columbia River burnt to the ground in a 5-alarm fire—at the time I worked in downtown Portland, and driving home at around three in the morning, you could see a blazing orange light in the sky, dominating the urban light pollution, all from miles away. This property “spanned nearly 250,000 square feet” and after starting in the wee hours of a Sunday morning, was basically under control by 7 a.m. and mostly out by 12:30 Sunday afternoon, with firefighters hitting “hot spots” for another 24(ish) hours. When it was all said and done, the fire used a little more than one million gallons of water, with fire inspector Ron Rouse saying this:

‘We had to call the Water Bureau to make sure we weren’t depleting the city of all its water,’ he said.

In contrast, the entire Gateway facility property is reportedly around 80,000 square feet, but the blaze is reportedly only in one building, which can only mean we’re talking about a fraction of the referenced hotel.

I bring this up for a quick comparison—the much smaller facility is still blazing…after nine days…and has, as of yesterday, already consumed more than five million gallons of water! In a state that has water resource issues, basically all the time. And, apparently that’s just 25% of what the estimated total water usage will be.

An unmitigated disaster, and a vision of what’s to come in this “green” new world order— as Reichert also said, Democrats (and Republicans allies) already have plans in the works to bring more battery storage facilities to at least eleven more neighborhoods in the San Diego area.

Absolutely criminal.


https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/05/sd_firefighters_fly_in_fire_experts_to_tackle_lithium_battery_fire_still_blazing_from_last_week.html