Residents in Monterey County, California, were issued a warning to close their doors and windows on Tuesday night after “light smoke and fire” were spotted at the Vistra Moss Landing Power Plant and Energy Storage Facility. The facility, which is one of the largest lithium-ion battery storage facilities in the world, recently experienced a major fire in January.
An emergency alert sent to local residents in Monterey County warned, “Public Safety Agencies are in Unified Command due to light smoke and fire at the Vistra Battery Facility in Moss Landing. Unified Command continues to monitor the situation and community air particulate matter and metals monitoring are ongoing.”
The alert added, “Out of an abundance of caution, safety agencies urge residents to close windows and doors overnight. Updates will be forthcoming.”
According to CBS News, the Vistra Moss Landing Power Plant and Energy Storage Facility previously experienced a huge fire in January that resulted in evacuations due to concerns of potential hazards caused by the smoke from the fire.
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CBS News reported that another alert sent to residents on Tuesday explained that the fire was detected at roughly 6:30 p.m. and appeared to be coming from the same area as the fire that occurred at the facility on January 16. The outlet also noted that the alert indicated that Tuesday’s fire did not appear to be burning any of the batteries that remained undamaged from the first fire in January.
According to CBS News, the massive January fire at the Vistra Moss Landing Power Plant and Energy Storage Facility was initially out of control due to the failure of the facility’s internal fire suppression system.
A video shared on X, formerly Twitter, shows the massive fire at the lithium-ion battery facility.
NBC Bay Area reported that scientists from San José State University’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories discovered increased concentrations of heavy metals at the Elkhorn Slough Reserves after the fire burned for multiple days in January. The outlet noted that the soil around the battery facility was found to have increased levels of cobalt, nickel, and manganese.
“They are clearly the type of material from a battery, so you can link directly the occurrence increasing of this toxic heavy metal to the source, which is a battery,” Dr. Ivano Aiello, chair of San José State’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, told KQED. “The line of evidence from a scientific perspective is pretty solid. There’s no other explanation as to why before the concentrations were much lower and now are much higher, and those elements are linked to those nanoparticles.”
