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LA VERNE, Calif. () — A fire erupted at a battery storage unit at a Metropolitan Water District facility in La Verne on Tuesday, prompting nearby schools to evacuate.
The lithium battery fire was reported around 11:40 a.m. near a solar panel field on the northeast side of the facility in the 3200 block of Wheeler Avenue. Crews from the La Verne Fire Department and Los Angeles County Fire Department responded.
One employee suffered minor injuries and was taken to a local hospital, according to La Verne Fire Department Battalion Chief Mark Savage.
Shortly after 3 p.m., the L.A. County Fire Department said the fire had been knocked down. AIR7 video shows firefighters dousing the flames with water.
La Verne fire crews were still monitoring the scene and mopping up, noting that there was still a risk, with more lithium batteries at the site.
By Tuesday evening, no flare-ups had been reported, and crews were using a drone to monitor the batteries.
Firefighters estimate there are fewer than 20 lithium batteries in the storage facility.
“These things do not like any kind of additional heat, and the understanding is, there is something going on with that bank now that it is reacting to the previous heat that it was exposed to,” said Batt. Chief Mark Savage. “So we are monitoring closely. We have reinitiated cooling measures for that battery bank now. But it’s one of those things that, once it gets started, it’s extremely difficult to stop, if not impossible to stop.”
The fire prompted evacuation orders and warnings near Bonita Avenue and Wheeler Avenue and a shelter-in-place for the surrounding residential neighborhood. Click here to see if you are in an impacted area.
Some evacuation orders were later downgraded to warnings. By early Tuesday evening, firefighters said the orders were only impacting the approximately 185 properties closest to the facility.
La Verne police said shopping centers along Wheeler Avenue north of Foothill Boulevard were evacuated as a precaution.
Grace Miller Elementary School, located just east of the facility, was under a shelter-in-place order, and Holly Oak Street south of the campus was closed to traffic. Savage said students appeared to be released from the school while firefighters battled the blaze.
Parents told Eyewitness News that Ramona Middle School and Bonita High School were also affected. Holy Name of Mary School, Damien High School and the University of La Verne were evacuated. The university said all classes were canceled until further notice.
Eyewitness News spoke to Ramona Middle School parents who arrived to pick up their kids. By the time most parents arrived, it was already the school’s normal pick-up time.
“They’re blocking off Wheeler, so it makes it a little hectic but scary at the same time, so we’re just here getting the kids out of safety,” said parent Irene Flores.
“We got it on our phones, the emergency message to evacuate our facility. So might as well come get the kids, make sure they’re safe,” said parent Jason Wagner. “In La Verne, we’ve never seen these kind of things.”
The Metropolitan Water District said its water supply was not affected by the fire.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
City News Service contributed to this report.
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