Thanks to GlobalTrvlr for pointing this one out to me.
A week ago, on Tuesday, two Tesla Megapack lithium-ion battery units caught fire at the Townsite Solar and Storage Facility in Boulder City, Nevada.
The site is about twenty miles south of Las Vegas, was completed in 2022, and sounds like it's monstrous. It's spread over more than a thousand acres with more than half a million solar panels. What an abomination.
Also, lots of your tax dollars at work.
...The new Townsite Solar + Storage facility features an innovative solar system and Tesla battery energy storage system (BESS). The new facility, located 20 miles south of Las Vegas, will generate more than 500,000 MWh per year of renewable energy, enough to power 60,000 homes annually, and will serve two local municipalities and an electric cooperative, avoiding 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.
...The 1,053-acre Townsite Solar + Storage incorporates 528,084 First Solar’s Series 6™ photovoltaic (PV) modules for a nameplate capacity of 232 MW DC/180 MW AC. It also has a 90 MWac energy storage facility that uses Tesla Megapack. Power generated on-site will be distributed underground to a 230kV substation and then via overhead generation tie-line to the Mead Substation just outside Boulder City.
At 7 p.m., an emergency 911 call came in that a lithium-ion battery fire had broken out at the Townsite facility. The responding units got to the scene and basically monitored the situation, letting the battery burn away while they kept adjacent units as safe as they could. Emergency response teams also closed the interstate and state highway sections close to the facility while the blaze was actively burning.
...Officials said procedures call for protecting the area around the fire but allowing the affected battery to burn. The battery involved was identified as a Tesla Megapack battery unit.
Firefighters from Henderson and Clark County were called to assist, and the Nevada Department of Transportation was requested to help ensure the interstate remained clear.
Two Tesla Megapack lithium battery units caught on fire at the Townsite Solar plant in Boulder City last night, burning for hours and still smoldering this morning. The plant is just 9 miles from Lake Mead, which provides 90% of the water to Las Vegas. pic.twitter.com/aA9hbGzXr0
— Las Vegas Locally 🌴 (@LasVegasLocally) September 24, 2025
Three hours or so later, they were in stand-down mode and had sent most of what they call 'mutual aid' departments away who'd also responded to the alarm.
But close to midnight, another Megapack erupted in a fire. The units still on the scene managed to get that quickly under control, and by 1 in the morning, they felt the situation was well enough in hand to clear the area.
Two days later, the units were still 'smouldering.'
A lithium battery fire at a Boulder City solar site continued to smolder Thursday, two days after the initial response.
Boulder City dispatch received call just before 7 p.m. Tuesday for the fire at the Townsite Solar site off Interstate 11 and U.S. Highway 95, according to the city’s social media account.
Crews reported a Tesla Megapack battery unit was fully involved. For these types of fires, procedures are to protect the area around the fire and let the affected battery unit burn, the city said.
There are all the usual assurances that there's no danger to the public and, thankfully, there were no injuries from the fire itself.
This is raising questions in some corners, though, which will have to wait until the investigation coughs up some answers. The Megapacks are specifically designed with safety in mind to prevent a cascading fire effect, where one burning unit starts the others in sequence. People interested in this technology and its hazards want to know whether the second unit ignited independently or whether the initial fire caused the second unit to light off.
Now, as always with these things, The Stache's short video (below) is hugely informative and well worth your five minutes. He says at the peak of fighting this particular fire, the chief on scene said they were dumping 12-1500 gallons of water per minute on it (he calls it a 'master-stream'). This was not to extinguish the blaze, but to keep the surrounding units cool and the fire contained to just those two mega-packs.
He also points out that, as is clearly visible in the aftermath, the surrounding units, while still intact, are fire-scorched and immediately compromised. He anticipates they'll all be decommissioned. You can see the charring on the neighboring units even before his video starts.
No bueno.
So, yes, that's the best-case scenario here. Out in the desert, a relatively isolated facility, well-trained response crews who arrived quickly (I believe the first emergency vehicle was onsite in eight minutes), and they had lots of water available.
There is some concern because it was a windy evening, and Lake Mead is only nine miles down the road, which is the drinking water supply for how many millions of people? However, the risk of contamination from smaller units being dispersed over such a large area is hopefully minimal. Also, the run-off from the firetrucks - I imagine they'll do soil testing, etc.
As Stache also notes, these fires occur more frequently than the public is aware of. This Boulder City fire was the second Tesla Megapack-involved blaze in two weeks.
At the end of August in Monterey County, California, what was at first believed to have been a brush fire in the area caused two of the Megapacks operating at the California Flats solar farm to ignite.
It turns out, the Megapacks were the cause of the brushfire that had people evacuating for miles around the area until it was contained.
A blaze on August 31, 2025 at the California Flats Solar Project near Parkfield, Monterey County (CA) ignited two Tesla Megapacks, prompting a two-mile evacuation that affected five rural homes. The fire was contained with no injuries and no off-site environmental damage, but it has renewed scrutiny of BESS safety practices.
The site combines 130 MW of solar PV with a 240 MWh battery system comprising 85 Megapack units. Developed on Hearst Corporation land, the project supplies clean power to Apple under a long-term PPA.
The incident began late morning; initial calls reported a vegetation fire, but CAL FIRE quickly identified a battery-related source within the storage array. The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office issued and later lifted the evacuation the same evening after Tesla’s Field Response Team assessed the situation as stable.
Again, the company that owns the farm is monitoring the area. Still, as this is the same county that is still recovering from the horrific Moss Point battery fire experience this past January, they're not exactly happy about any of this.
California Flats Energy Storage Project is owned by Arevon, an Arizona-based energy company that specializes in renewable energy storage like solar and battery, while the project itself sits on Hearst Ranch property and provides energy to companies like Apple, PG&E, and Tesla, the Hearst Ranch website said.
Arevon Senior Director of Communications Blair Matocha told New Times that the Aug. 30 incident was confined to four batteries of the 84 installed at the facility as the project’s thermal detection system was triggered and automatically notified emergency authorities.
Once Cal Fire arrived, the fire was quickly contained and extinguished, Matocha said via email. There were no injuries, and no private property was damaged.
“As an added precaution, the battery manufacturer is on-site providing 24/7 monitoring to ensure continued safety. The local fire departments [were] also dispatched to the site to monitor the situation but were not required to take any action,” Matocha said.
Coincidentally, both sites - the farm in Monterey County and the Townsite farm in Boulder City - are owned and operated by Arevon out of Arizona.
It's not really surprising that one has to go digging to find any word of these fires unless, as Stache said, it happens next to a highway or in a neighborhood, or is simply so massive it can't be ignored.
There is considerable pushback building even in the formerly friendliest of green places, and they don't need the very real hazards of these facilities spoiling their plans.
The direct costs of incidents like Boulder City are obvious. Each Megapack costs well over a million dollars. Replacement, repair, and downtime create major financial hits for project operators.
The indirect costs can be even greater. Each fire damages public confidence in clean energy projects, giving opponents of renewable expansion easy talking points. Insurance premiums rise. Regulators take notice, often slowing the approval process for future projects.
Fires also undermine trust with local communities. Residents may grow wary of hosting battery sites nearby, especially in urban or rooftop settings. Developers must then fight uphill battles to secure permits and social acceptance.
Hidden Costs of BESS Fires
- Higher insurance premiums and tighter coverage limits
- Stricter regulatory reviews and permitting delays
- Local community resistance and reputational damage
- Disrupted financial models and investor uncertainty
I would hope developers have to 'fight uphill battles' for every single one from this point forward.
I hope they have to fight tooth and nail.
And 'rare' is a meaningless term for what the possible consequences are for one of these fires in a populated neighborhood or critical watershed when they never should have been placed there to begin with.
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