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Over 1,000 people were advised to evacuate a community in Northern California after a large fire erupted Thursday afternoon at one of the world’s largest battery storage plants.
Video circulating on social media shows smoke and flames erupting from the Moss Landing Power Plant on Thursday night in the community of Moss Landing, located in Monterey County, about 25 miles south of Santa Cruz.
The plant is owned by Texas-company Vistra Energy and contains tens of thousands of lithium batteries, which are important for storing electricity from such renewable energy sources as solar energy, but can be extremely difficult to put out if they go up in flames.
The North County Fire Protection District Fire received a call on Thursday afternoon at around 3 p.m. about the fire at the plant, according to Chief Joel Mendoza, who spoke at a news briefing Friday morning.
“Our first unit on scene arrived and found that there was smoke out of the building and we did find at least one battery on fire,” Mendoza said.
About an hour into the fire, “conditions changed drastically” and a fire suppression system in the facility that has worked well in past incidents was not proving to be helpful.
“In this particular case, that system was not sufficient, it was overridden, and that led to fire overtaking the system and eventually overtaking the entire building,” Mendoza said.
It was then that a mandatory evacuation for the area was issued, and surrounding roadways were closed. Around 1,200 to 1,500 residents were evacuated safely from about 7,600 acres of land, according to Monterey County Communications Director Nick Pasculli, who also spoke at the briefing Friday.
No injuries or deaths have been reported as a result of the fire, Pasculli said.
Mendoza reported that “most of that fire has gone out,” and that there is very little active flame left. The peak of the fire seemed to be last night between the hours of 8 and 10 p.m., he added.
Hydrogen fluoride, the primary toxic gas released when lithium batteries burn, was not detected by monitors used to track air quality on the scene, Mendoza said, emphasizing that this is based on a preliminary report.
In an update shared Friday morning, the Santa Cruz County Office of Response, Recovery and Resilience said the fire poses no imminent significant threat and that people can resume normal activities.
“Sensitive groups including those with respiratory difficulties should continue monitoring local air conditions,” the county said in the update posted on X. “While home, we recommend keeping doors and windows closed until further notice, especially residents who live closest to the fire.”
During the briefing, Monterey County District 2 Supervisor Glenn Church described the fire “as a worst case scenario of a disaster” that nobody predicted.
“This is really a lot more than just a fire, it’s really a wake up call for this industry, and if we’re going to be moving ahead with sustainable energy we need to have safe battery systems in place,” Church said.
Church said this is the fourth fire that has happened at this site since 2019, adding that a transition to sustainable energy should not come before safety and the environment.
The cause of the fire is not known at this time, but Church promised that there will be accountability.
“There must be accountability for this, and there will be accountability,” he said.
There were fires at the Vistra plant in 2021 and 2022 that were caused by a fire sprinkler system malfunction that resulted in some units overheating, The Associated Press reported.
Vistra Energy Director of Community Affairs Brad Watson apologized on behalf of the company in the news briefing on Friday.
“Our company takes very seriously what happened last night and we are hurting today, because we know primarily its impacted and disrupted the people who live around our site — our neighbors, our friends and businesses.”
Watson said Vistra has arranged for an outside consultant to monitor air quality in the area.
The mandatory evacuation is still in effect in the area. Monterey County Sheriff Tina M. Nieto said she is waiting to receive more information to confirm if it’s safe to lift it, and hopes to do so by Friday afternoon.
North Monterey County Unified School District announced that all schools and offices would be closed Friday due to the fire.