By Tichys Einblick

In the garage of a two-family house, an Audi e-tron was on fire. They attacked the residential building and a Smart parked in front of it – a major alarm for the volunteer fire brigades from four Neuhöfer districts. Emergency services also arrived from Fulda.

In East Hesse, an electric car probably set fire to a two-family house last weekend. In the Neuhof district of Dorfborn near Fulda, an electric Audi e-tron and a car parked next to it went up in flames. The Bild newspaper reports on this. Both cars were in the garage, so the fire could light the entire residential building. The flames destroyed the garage, which collapsed, as well as another parked car in front of the garage.

In the house also partial ceilings collapsed, the roof truss was significantly damaged.

The house was built in an exemplary way to protect the climate – but this proved to be particularly dangerous for the firefighters: The batteries and a photovoltaic system on the roof made extinguishing particularly dangerous. The firefighters had to protect themselves from electric shocks.

The electric Audi e-tron was transported to an extinguishing basin and placed under water to hinder further passage of the battery.

The two-family house is uninhabitable, experts estimate the damage at around 500,000 euros. After all, the fire brigades with 60 men were able to save the neighboring house from the spread of the flames.

The fire brigades were still equipped with diesel-powered vehicles. The Stuttgart fire brigade recently drove an electric Audi e-tron to a fire in a shopping center in the city center. After the operation, the battery of the e-tron was empty, the car could not drive back. The fire brigade explained that only the 12 volt on-board battery was emptied due to the power consumption of blue light and radio. However, it would normally have been enough to turn on the engine that would have charged the battery.