EV Charging Allegedly Caused Fire in North Jakarta

KatadataOTO – EV charging is suspected to be the cause of a fire in Pejagalan, Penjaringan, North Jakarta. The incident, which occurred on Thursday (18/12), resulted in the deaths of five people.

Reporting from Antara, the fire grew larger because there were many flammable materials around the car.

“The fire is suspected to have originated from the charging of an electric car in the home's yard and then spread to burn the building,” said Gatot Sulaeman, Head of the Operations Section (Kasiops) of the North Jakarta and Thousand Islands Fire and Rescue Agency (Gulkarmat).

He said that the homeowner was charging the electric car's battery when an electrical phenomenon occurred, causing an explosion in the car. The fire then spread to paint thinner used for making flower vase accessories, causing it to grow rapidly.

Photo: Antara

The nearest firefighters from the Pejagalan Fire Post departed for the location at 20:14 WIB, and the unit arrived at the scene at 20:19 WIB. They then began the extinguishing process, supported by 21 other units.

He said the cooling process at the fire scene was hampered by the presence of hazardous and toxic materials (B3) such as paint thinner, paint, plastic pellets, and paper.

It took the Gulkarmat Sub-agency (Sudin) officers 10 hours to extinguish the fire.

“We started the firefighting operation at 20:20 WIB and it was only completed on Friday morning at 08:08 WIB,” he said.

He said a total of 110 personnel were deployed with 22 fire trucks to extinguish the fire. Moreover, the fire location was quite large, reaching 1,680 square meters.

This certainly presented its own challenge in extinguishing the fire.

Under Police Investigation

Photo: The Independent

This incident will be handled by the Penjaringan Metro Police. They have already examined five witnesses for data collection and questioning.

"Officers are still carrying out the identification process using ante-mortem and post-mortem recognition by the identification team on the five bodies. Everything will be collaborated with the results of the autopsy team's examination at RSCM," said AKBP Agus Ady Wijaya, Head of the Penjaringan Metro Police (20/12).