A fire that hit a freighter carrying thousands of luxury cars adrift off the coast of Portugal’s Azores islands has lost its intensity — likely because there is little to burn, a port official said.
The Felicity Ace, which was carrying about 4,000 vehicles including Porsches, Audis and Bentleys, some electric with lithium-ion batteries, caught fire in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday.
The 22 crew on board were evacuated the same day.
“The fire has subsided in the last few hours,” João Mendes Cabeças, captain of the closest port to the Azorean island of Faial, told the Lusa news agency, saying there was probably little combustible material left to burn.
Cabeças told Reuters over the weekend that lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles were “keeping the fire alive”, adding that specialized equipment was needed to extinguish it. It was unclear whether the batteries caused the fire.
He also said the fire was spreading closer to the ship’s fuel tanks.
“Our concern has been with pollution, because the ship has large amounts of fuel on board and car batteries, but so far there are no sources of pollution,” Cabeças told Lusa.
As the fire’s intensity subsides, firefighting crews and technicians can board the ship to prepare to tow it to Europe or the Bahamas, Cabeças said.
Volkswagen, which owns the brands, did not confirm the total number of cars on board and said on Friday (18) that it was awaiting further information. The company did not immediately respond to a request by Reuters for comment on next steps to identify the cause of the fire.
Source: CNN Brasil
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