Electric car ‘spontaneously’ combusts in Wareham, firefighters say

An electric car spontaneously caught fire in Wareham early Saturday morning, according to the local fire department.

Firefighters said it took three hours and thousands of gallons of water to put it out.

The Wareham Fire Department responded around 4:15 a.m. on Saturday to a report that a vehicle had caught fire in a driveway near Great Hill Estates. Firefighters described in a Facebook post how they put out the initial fire and “continued to wet the vehicle down,” but “approximately 30 minutes later, the fire again flared up.”

Firefighters spent about three hours at the scene, and reported using over 11,000 gallons of water to make sure the fire was completely extinguished. 

“The fire appeared to have started spontaneously,” officials said, “as the car had already been charged.”

“If this vehicle had been parked in a garage the results could have been disastrous,” Incident Commander Chief John Kelley wrote on Facebook. “Electric vehicle fires are difficult to fight and present unique challenges.”

There were no injuries reported. Wareham Police and EMS assisted at the scene.

A 2022 analysis of government transportation data found that electric vehicles catch fire at a rate of about 25 fires per 100,000 vehicles sold, compared to 1,529 fires in gas-powered vehicles and 3,475 fires in hybrid vehicles. But electric vehicle fires are often the hardest to put out, the study found.

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