hi this is eco electric news reports coming from normal illinois say that they've been an emergency fire outbreak at rivien's vehicle manufacturing factories where the electric automaker is making its r1t trucks amazon delivery vans and suv this is the third one in the last months let's talk about it a battery pack caught fire on saturday morning at the rivian automotive plant in normal after one of its cells overheated during testing a press release from the normal fire department said firefighters from normal and bloomington were called at 10 38 a.m saturday to the plant for a report of a battery pack on fire inside the facility it was at least the third fire at the plant in the past seven months fire officials said a battery pack was experiencing thermal runaway in a testing area on the southwest side of the plant where aryan battery packs were built it forced the evacuation of the battery assembly area firefighters hooked up hoses to building standpipes and put out the fire firefighters moved the battery outside after putting it out and said they continued to cool it with water until it was released to rivien engineers for investigation and disassembly the exact cause of the fire is under investigation but the battery pack had been in a repair area and was being tested when it ignited said the fire department the press release explained a thermal runaway event as when a battery cell overheats and starts burning from either an electrical fault or another fire as the battery cell combusts more heat is spread to adjacent cells causing a self-sustaining chain reaction additionally the fire was in the battery assembly area and did not affect any vehicles or production equipment the fire did not involve a vehicle or production equipment only the battery back its carrier and test with equipment were damaged the press release said once the pack was extinguished and cooled off firefighters said they moved it outside and aired out smoke from the plant the report came in about 10 30 a.m and firefighters said they had returned the building to rivien's control by 2pm there were no injuries this isn't the first time the fire department is responding to a fire emergency at rivien's factory normal fire department has responded to at least two other fires at the rivien plant since production began last fall in february a vehicle caught fire inside the plant though the sprinkler system kept it from spreading in october 2021 a small fire broke out in the automated battery assembly area thankfully no one has ever been injured during any of these incidents rivien isn't the only automaker who's had to deal with battery pack fire incidents either tesla has had numerous battery pack incidents as well and not only in factories but with vehicles on the road rivian is going to have to figure out how to reduce battery pack fire incidents during testing to prevent an incident like this from ever happening again although it's pretty unlikely as batteries are very unstable and can easily catch on fire so far riven vehicles on the road haven't had any battery related fire incidents so i guess that's a win and that's it for today's quick news report tell us what you think in the comments section below thanks for watching and don't forget to like share and subscribe for more videos like this one coming the future see you later you