OT: Did I witness a lithium battery fire?

Jul 02, 2024 Last reply: 2 years ago 12 Replies

As much about these things here. Last night in Winchester 7:20pm ,the road that goes from Jewry St past the rail station, the junction at the public record office. As I was about to walk across the major junction at the record office. A large car , no good at makes, had some noticable white smoke coming from the rear as it waited to cross the lights. On crossing the junction the amount of white smoke increased dramatically so filling the whole junction area with smoke. It passed me about 6 foot away, no engine noise heard, no hissing or other odd noises. The van behind it had to stop and vehicles coming the other way must have stopped, but impossible to see as only about 20 yards visibility, fillingthe road to shops roof height. A sort of mild chemical smell not oil,rubber or diesel. I could not hang around, smoke too dense to see if any flames. I passed the area



2hours later and no burnt out car seen, railway staff had no knowledge.

Nothing found on news aggregators. Vehicle travelling City Road North to Stockbridge rd, presumably not very far along Stockbridge Rd. Smoke and smell reminded mea bit of disco fug of glycol dripping on a hot plate, ie white smoke and not unpleasant smell

N_Cook snipped-for-privacy@tcp.co.uk> wrote in news:v63cv7$25rng$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

Sounds more like a misfuel.

Wouldn't that me mean a nasty misfiring engine noise/ faultering motion?

Possibly a leak (blown head gasket?) causing antifreeze to vaporize. Antifreeze and fogging fluid are pretty much the same, so the engine turns into a moving fog machine.

Thomas Prufer

Sounds plausible, if the normal amount of antifreeze could generate enough "smoke" to fill a major junction in 3 seconds and perhaps 50 yards of B road and pavements to roof height in about 3 seconds, with visibility as low as 20 yards

This.

The OP has described exactly what happened to me once. With coolant pouring into the cylinders and being evaporated you get a massive coolant-smelling white cloud trailing behind you. Top tip: don't awitch the engine off because when you do, you'll get a hydraulic lock.

Nick

ISTR it takes just spoonfuls of fog fluid to make a very large amount of fog. Fog machines are limited by the power of the heater -- in an internal combustion engine that would many thousands of watts!

Thomas Prufer

You can get the same if a major coolant hose goes and coolant pours onto the hot exhaust.

Like a 2" main coolant pipe split on an XJS...

Saw something like that once, I was in lane 1 on a dual carriageway, a car whizzed past in the other lane leaving a really dense white cloud which blinded me completely, couldn't even see the white lines up close, I just slowed down gently hoping I'd not hit anything; the cloud dispersed after a few seconds showing everyone else going slowly around me, fortunately!

nib

It looks like if I could have hung around, the vapour cloud "smoke" would have disappeared quickly , ulike real smoke that would have hung around for ages, with little wind at the time

I was once driving along a dual carriageway and became aware that there was smoke coming out from under another car. I flashed my lights at him, signalled, left, and persuaded him to pull over.

I could see his really puzzled expression in the mirror, until he stopped, and the smoke started coming out from the front of the car - when light dawned!

I'm not Samaritan enough to have waited to see what he did about it.

Andy

Three of us were following a car when we smelt petrol. As we got closer we could see petrol pouring out from under the rear of the car.

We drew level and shouted at him that his petrol tank was leaking. He carried on driving.

I remember following an articulated lorry with a red hot rear brake,. We overtook and gesticulated. The tyre was on fire. He carried on, too.

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