ST GEORGE — Two seemingly unrelated calls to Knox Regional Communications Center drew deputies, firefighters, and EMS to one larger incident early Thursday morning when a St. George resident reported that a female was banging on doors yelling for help, while another resident reported seeing flames in the distance. Traced back to the origin, all eyes focused on an electric car.

Knox County Sheriff’s Office deputies were already en route to the area to locate the woman and determine her intentions when the resident reporting flames came upon a car on fire at approximately 12:20 a.m., April 6.

Come to find, the female driver – and sole occupant – had lost control of her Toyota IQ EV and came to stop in a ditch near 507 Port Clyde Road, igniting a spark that would quickly engulf the entire vehicle. 

Firefighters spent more than half an hour working to extinguish the flames surrounding the car, which was fully involved by the time the first firefighters arrived.

The IQ EV uses either lithium-ion battery or nickel-metal hydride batteries. Damaged batteries can overheat, and inside those batteries are cells separated into battery packs by thin plastic dividers, according to Rhode Island firefighter Central Falls Battalion Chief Christopher Gray, who has developed a training course on electric car fires. If the divider fails, the components mix “and go into thermal runaway,” bursting into flames. Prior to the flames, characteristic hissing and popping sounds are often heard.

“It’s going to be like a jet engine, it’s not going to be like a regular car fire,” he said.

Nickel batteries are better protected from runaway thermal than lithium, yet lithium is very popular for its enormous energy density. Compared with fires involving gas-activated vehicles, extinguishing electric car fires tend to take more time. Sometimes fire departments must decide whether to put very large amounts of water on the fire, or to simply wait and let the flames recede on their own.

St. George fire and ambulance services were set into motion around 12:20 a.m., and the first mention of the flames being extinguished came around 1 a.m. Within the next 15 minutes, AutoMaster was en route to the area in order to haul away the starkly minimal remains of a car that the operator indicated to deputies she’d only owned for a day, according to Knox County Sheriff Chief Deputy Curt Andrick.

BillieJoe Olsen, 56, of St. George, declined medical attention and was arrested on OUI charges, according to the S.O.

The crash that caused the fire is still under investigation.