A fire on a cargo ship carrying electric vehicles that contain highly flammable lithium-ion batteries was burning off Alaska’s coast on Wednesday night, more than 24 hours after it broke out, the U.S. Coast Guard and the ship’s manager said.
A deck carrying electric vehicles began smoking on Tuesday afternoon when the ship, the Morning Midas, was approximately 1,200 miles from Anchorage, according to its manager, Zodiac Maritime. The crew, unable to contain it, sent a distress alert 15 minutes later, the London-based shipping company said in a statement.
All 22 crew members left the 600-foot ship on a lifeboat and were rescued by a nearby commercial vessel, the Coast Guard said in a statement.
A spokeswoman for the Coast Guard said that it was allowing the fire to burn out and watching from a safe distance because of the risk that lithium-ion batteries in the cars could explode.
The agency plans to investigate the cause of the fire, said the spokeswoman, Petty Officer First Class Shannon Kearney of the Coast Guard’s 17th District in Alaska. She said it was too soon to conclude that the fire started from the electric vehicles.
Electric vehicles contain lithium-ion batteries that can overheat and cause fires that spread rapidly and produce toxic gases, making them difficult and dangerous to extinguish.
The Morning Midas was carrying 3,000 cars, including 800 electric vehicles, and had been expected to arrive at Lázaro Cárdenas in Mexico on June 15, according to Zodiac.
The ship left Yantai, China, on May 26, and stopped at Shanghai and Nansha, two major hubs for Chinese electric vehicle exports, before setting off across the Pacific, according to Maritime Optima, a shipping data provider based in Norway.
Imports from China dominate the electric vehicle market in Latin America. More than 60 percent of electric vehicles sold in Mexico in 2023 and 2024 were from China, according to the International Energy Agency.
The dangers of battery fires can be greater at sea, where saltwater could corrode the materials covering a battery and ignite a larger flame.
In 2022, the Felicity Ace, a car carrier slightly larger than Morning Midas, sank in the Atlantic Ocean along with around 4,000 vehicles — including Bentleys and Porsches — after a fire onboard burned for nearly two weeks.
Lithium-ion batteries also pose risks to air travel. In recent months, Southwest Airlines and several carriers in Asia have tightened in-flight restrictions on the use and transport of the batteries. The bans in Asia went into effect after a fire destroyed a passenger jet at an airport in South Korea in January.
There is no definitive link between portable batteries and that fire, and an investigation is underway.
Francesca Regalado is a Times reporter covering breaking news.
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