A ship carrying vehicles to Mexico continues to burn several days after fire engulfed the vessel earlier this week. Crew members of the Morning Midas abandoned the ship after firefighting efforts failed, with the car hauler left floating adrift in waters off the coast of the Aleutian Islands near Alaska.
The ship, built in 2006, was traveling from Yantai, China to Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico, with 3,048 vehicles on board. 70 of these were full electric vehicles, and 681 were hybrids, according to reports from the US Coast Guard. The cause of the fire is not yet clear, but it began in an area of the ship that was storing EVs.
“Smoke was initially seen emanating from a deck carrying electric vehicles,” stated Zodiac Maritime, the UK-based operator of the Liberian-flagged vessel. “The crew immediately initiated emergency firefighting procedures using the vessel’s onboard fire-suppression systems. However, despite their efforts, the situation could not be brought under control.”
With the crew unable to quash the flames, the decision was made to abandon the ship via lifeboat. All 22 crew were able to safely leave the vessel with no injuries reported. Crew members were later able to transfer to the Cosco Hellas, a merchant container ship passing the area. US Coast Guard Cutter Munro diverted to the area to assist, with a C-130J Super Hercules also deployed to the area from Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak.
There remain concerns around the impact of the incident on the immediate area. “Our priorities are to ensure the continued safety of the crew and protect the marine environment,” stated Zodiac Maritime. Reports are that the vessel had 350 metric tons of gas fuel and 1530 metric tons of very low-sulfur fuel oil on board. As yet, no release to the environment has been observed.
The most up-to-date reports from Zodiac Marine on Thursday indicate that the vessel remains afloat and likely on fire, with smoke still pouring from the vessel during recent overflights. As reported by Marine Log, the ship’s operator has tapped Resolve Marine to deploy tugs and salvage specialists to the stricken vessel to deal with the matter. These teams are expected to arrive in the area on June 9. The ship is still being monitored remotely via satellite connection to on-board systems.
This incident has once again put the media spotlight on the issue of EV transport. Concerns loom large around the intensity of EV battery fires and the difficulty extinguishing them. Similar issues were raised when the Felicity Ace burned and sank in 2022, and again with the Fremantle Highway in 2023. In many of these cases, EVs were blamed or suspected as the cause of the fire. However, as with this current situation, definitive evidence that an electric vehicle sparked the fire has not been discovered..
In any case, the best news regarding the Morning Midas is that the crew was able to evacuate and all were rescued safely. It will be some time before the ship is dealt with by salvage crews. Until then, it sits as a smoking reminder of how dangerous fire can be at sea.
Image credits: US Coast Guard
I could see a heated debate about the right way to extinguish the fires. I’d bet the shipping companies cannot fathom the cost, however…
Those EV’s are really good for the environment too I’ve been told.
Where’s a torpedo when you need one?
Who cares the EVs burning are creating fresh sir
Sal Mercogliano with his What’s Going On With Shipping? channel on YouTube is the best source for issues like this. https://youtu.be/cFhhvr_afws?si=RvpEQS2fT5ON_RE2
Apparently Chery and Great Wall vehicles are known to be on board but none of the great wall are EVs. They need a way to throw the EVs that catch on fire off the ship.
Or how dangerous electric car fires are. I would be interested in how much pollution that thing is gifting to our atmosphere. Snark
More proof that it takes a lot of water to put out a sail away battery fire.
To late to rename the ship the MV Disco Inferno?
Ooooh so many questions
This is probably a very stupid question, but why is a ship going from China to Mexico near the Aleutian Islands? That seems out of the way.
It’s “The Great Circle Route.” Maps are flat, but the world is round (really, I promise) so what looks like a straight line on a map actually needs to curve to pick the shortest and most fuel-efficient route. Here’s what it looks like from the two closest airports.
https://www.greatcirclemap.com/?routes=YNT-ZIH
Interesting. I figured the shortest route wouldn’t necessary be straight across the ocean, but I’m surprised to see it goes that far north.
Same thing happens flying to Europe. I always see nothing but glaciers out the window and think “Noooo, would not want to go down there.”
That’s a fun web site. I knew about Great Circle routes, but when I entered Seattle and Sydney it was a perfectly straight line.
They’re ALL straight lines from directly overhead, that’s why they’re the Great Circle Routes ????
Ok. Duh. Head smack. They just look weird when one transposes the path on a 2D map.
The website is cool in that you can “grab” the globe and spin it anyway you like.
Yep, really cool. That was a grinning emoji that I forgot doesn’t translate here. GIVE US IMAGES AND EMOJIS, TEAM!
+1 AND the ability to choose the sorting order of comments.
In addition to the Great Circle thing that Bob mentioned, there’s also some benefit for staying near(ish) to shorelines in case of emergencies if they needed to make interim stops for any reason. Plus currents can partially dictate the route. Same basic idea with airliners and the jet stream. Transatlantic flights to/from the Eastern US are pretty frequently diverted to Maine, Newf/Labrador, or even Iceland or Ireland. The Great Circle usually means they’re pretty close to one of those.
Perhaps from now on EV carriers should have seacocks (heh heh) in their compartments. Whichever EV cooks off just flood the compartment. Treat them like naval magazines or something.
You read it here first.
I’ve read elsewhere that sea water is conductive enough to create as many issues as it solves.
True. Even 9V DC can start the electrolysis process.
Source: I once put a 9V battery in salt water and saw bubbles coming up.
How about a remote controlled fire survivable fork lift and a route to dump the burning car overboard? Good enough for jets on carriers… Then again, until the insurers demand it, packing EVs in as tight as possible is the only affordable option.
Stability, stability. Naval mags are low in the hull.
Did Jason order a replacement battery for the ChangLi?
I’m guessing it is BYD’s. Amazing how fast they are growing in Mexico. Literally saw them everywhere in Mexico City last week…..
I was going to say MG since they’re the only Chinese brand in the top 10. But BYD sells the most EVs
Anecdotally, seems like BYD has blown past MG in the last year or so there….
What’s the reason for deploying a heavy lift transport plane to perform the inspection flyovers?
Kodiak’s responsibility is almost to Russia so they need a plane that has the range.
That’s what CGAS Kodiak has. The Coast Guard only uses their heaviest-duty aircraft in Alaska — there’s no HC-144 or C-27s based there.
In addition to what the others said, the C-130 is just badass and if you have a chance to take it, then why not? 🙂
I’ve used MSFS to putter around Kodiak several times, it’s one of my favorite places to explore virtually.
C-130 is the USCG’s long distance recon platform. They use it for a lot of different operations.
The HC-130 is the standard US Coast Guard long range maritime patrol aircraft. Near 20 hours of endurance, a surface-search radar mounted below the fuselage, and advanced communications capabilities. All allow the aircraft to serve as the “quarterback” for multiple aircraft and surface vessels in complex situations.
The AC-130 was getting serviced. So all they could do was a flyover for now.
Not enough EV sales? Then we will just burn them. Rename ship The Rump Husk !
If they abandon the ship and I happen to get to it. Does that give me claim to any of it or its cargo (assuming I can get the fire out)?
I guess I’d want to know what cars are on it before committing. Coming from China it could be anything from BYD and Geely to YESIMAMADA and PAFISMADOL.
You can claim a portion of the cargo’s value, to be negotiated with the owner of the ship — sometimes that does include retaining a portion of the cargo, but usually it means a large check from Lloyd’s of London.
Given the destination, it’s likely that this ship also contains Chevrolets and Dodges. All of Chevrolet’s cars, ⅓ of its SUVs, and some pickup and van models in Mexico are produced by the SAIC-GM partnership and imported from China.
I’ll claim the half that has the Chevys. Who wants the other half?
Here, here…drove my Chevy to the levy, but the levy was…wet
Models affected include the BYD Papal Conclave, the Chery Vape, and the Vinfast Valdez.
Sounds like a poorly trained crew. I’m sure they are paid bottom dollar and I don’t blame the crew. But I do blame the owner/operator. If they can still monitor the ship remotely, the bridge looks intact… Shipboard firefighting assuming they had the proper training and gear should have included more than just activating “onboard fire-suppression systems.”
At this point it should be towed out over the Marianas trench and let a submarine put a few torpedoes in it for practice.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to make judgements about the crew based on this information.
The crew appears to have done fine. The thermal runaway of EV batteries and the arrangement of cars JAMMED into 12-ish decks makes these fires effectively unfightable. There are no compartments that can be shut off or flooded with CO2 or similar and the batteries already have an oxidizer anyway. There are holes through the car decks to enable tie-downs so you can’t seal virtually any of it. All of the 3,000 vehicles onboard have tanks with gasoline in them, which can easily become heated, vaporized, and explosive. When there’s an EV fire on a ship it’s time to leave. You get the crew off early, in daylight and fair weather, with enough time to do everything right, and within range of a ship coming to rescue you. You do not wait until all of your options become very bad ones.
The commercial standard IS “Activate the onboard fire suppression system,” but it won’t help:
“Time is the key factor in a successful incident response for either ICEV or EVs. Experiments show that ICEV and EVs alike commonly reach their peak heat release rate in 6 to 10 minutes from onset of fire. If the initial response does not have a fire under control within 10-15 minutes of the first alarm then use of Fixed Firefighting Systems (FFS) is recommended.”
https://www.ics-shipping.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Fire-Response-High-Level-Guidelines.pdf
Exactly.Flooding the deck with CO2 doesn’t work because the EV batteries don’t need oxygen; they are in thermal runaway. I watched a YouTube from a firefighter talking about it and he says there’s no practical way to put out an EV fire at sea. On land they often need to flood the vehicle with 40,000 gallons of water. Do that at sea and I suspect you’ll be abandoning the ship soon anyway.
It’s irrelevant if the fire was started by an EV or not; once one goes into thermal runaway it’s time to abandon ship.
Yep. You use the CO2 to try and limit everything else from catching fire, but at sea that just maybe buys you some time.
EV battery fires only take 40,000 gallons of water if the fire department does not have the correct tools to fight an EV fire. If a battery is in thermal runaway it is confined inside a steel case with its own oxygen source. All spray water on the outside of the battery case does is keep the fire from spreading until the battery burns itself out.
To actually put out the fire you have to pierce the steel battery case – which is possible with piercing nozzles specifically made to fight EV fires. This allows the water to get to the actual fire and be put out with hundreds of gallons of water instead of tens of thousands. However, they are expensive so most fire departments don’t have them.
I’ve a bit surprised that EVs so not have a requirement for a standard quick connect that would allow fire fighters to connect to the inside of the battery and flood it.
One piercing nozzle option: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8fURnzs3SI
I’m glad the crew is safe!
😀
I think I’m missing the joke on “an ship”…..
Look at the URL for this article.
No, I saw that… I’m just guessing it’s a joke reference to something?
I’m guessing it is the work of our new masters and overlords.
Al Hell Artifactual Intelligence!
Without you, we couldn’t have autocrossout changing our sentence meanings as we tip.
Maybe this?
Ah ha! That’s what it was reminding me of. Thank you!
Always happy to provide an service!
Definitely that 🙂