If the raging wildfires across Los Angeles County weren't enough, California faced another crisis overnight as one of the world's largest battery storage facilities, situated about 100 miles south of San Francisco, caught fire, triggering area-wide evacuations.
AP News reported that a fire broke out Thursday at the Moss Landing Power Plant, a natural gas-fired generation plant with thousands of lithium batteries for energy storage. Fires involving lithium batteries, as seen with electric vehicles, are notoriously difficult to extinguish and could burn uncontrollably for days.
"There's no way to sugarcoat it. This is a disaster, is what it is," Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church told local media outlet KSBW-TV. However, Church did not expect the fire to spread outside the perimeter of the plant.
Local media outlet The Mercury News noted that fires at the Vistra plant, which Vistra Energy owns, and one of the largest battery storage facilities in the world boasting a capacity of 750 megawatts and 3,000 megawatt-hours, experienced fires in 2021 and 2022. The energy storage facility plays a massive role in stabilizing California's power grid.
It's unclear at this point what started the fire. Local authorities evacuated more than 2,000 people around the plant due to concerns over hazardous materials and potential chemical releases.
There's an ongoing fire at the Vistra Power Plant Moss Landing. Heat signature can be seen in satellite imagery. https://t.co/9HOW56poM7 #CAwx pic.twitter.com/sH3vGbZcVR
— NWS Bay Area � (@NWSBayArea) January 17, 2025
"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.
KSBW said Vistra confirmed the fire was detected in the 300-MW Phase I energy storage facility.
Here's footage of the fire posted on X:
�#BREAKING: Evacuation orders have been issued after a lithium battery plant caught fire releasing hazardous toxins into the air⁰⁰�#MossLanding | #Californa ⁰⁰Currently, numerous emergency crews are on the scene of a massive fire broke out at the Moss Landing Power Plant's… pic.twitter.com/MMcpY0yka1
— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) January 17, 2025
North County Fire is currently addressing a fire at the Moss Landing Power Plant.
— California Fire Tracker (@deb8rr) January 17, 2025
As a precaution, individuals in Zones MRY-B047 and MRY-B053 are advised to close their windows and doors, and turn off any air systems until further notice. pic.twitter.com/VlMFxaYhik
Elon Musk on X denounced far-left MSM for spreading misinformation and disinformation about the fire:
To reiterate, the legacy news headlines are false. This fire has nothing to do with Tesla and our Megapacks are operating well. https://t.co/4gxa2AKIa8
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 17, 2025
There's no update yet on the current grid impacts or how operations at the Moss Landing Power Plant are affected. It's another setback for Democrats in their push for a 'green' utopia in a state that seems to be imploding by the week.