Fire at one of world's largest battery plants in California forces evacuations

MOSS LANDING: A major fire burning Friday at one of the world's largest battery storage plants in Northern California is sending up flames of toxic smoke, leading to the evacuation of 1,700 people and the closure of a major highway. The blaze in Moss Landing started Thursday. Fire crews were not engaging with the fire but were waiting for it to burn out on its own, The Mercury News reported.

The blaze was still burning early Friday and it had not gone beyond the facility, according to Monterey County spokesperson Nicholas Pasculli.

As of late Thursday, a few dozen people were at a temporary evacuation centre and the rest had gone to friends or family or made other arrangements, Pasculli said.

The Moss Landing Power Plant, located about 77 miles (125 kilometres) south of San Francisco, is owned by Texas-based company Vistra Energy and contains tens of thousands of lithium batteries.

The batteries are important for storing electricity from such renewable energy sources as solar energy, but if they go up in flames the blazes can be extremely difficult to put out.

"There's no way to sugar coat it. This is a disaster, is what it is," Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church told KSBW-TV. But he said he did not expect the fire to spread beyond the concrete building it was enclosed in.

The county Board of Supervisors planned an emergency meeting Friday morning to receive a briefing on the fire.

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, according to The Mercury News.

It was unclear what caused this latest fire. Vistra said in a statement that after it was detected, everyone at the site was evacuated safely. After the fire is out, an investigation will begin.

"Our top priority is the safety of the community and our personnel, and Vistra deeply appreciates the continued assistance of our local emergency responders," Jenny Lyon, a spokesperson for Vistra, said in a statement.

North Monterey County Unified School District announced that all schools and offices would be closed Friday due to the fire.