The fire department in Normal, Illinois — after extinguishing a blaze that destroyed 55 all-electric Rivian vehicles at the automakers’ factory — has turned the investigation into the cause over to the automaker, which has yet to determine what sparked the fire.
Rivian Automotive builds its R1S electric SUV and R1T electric pickup at its factory in Normal, the home of Illinois State University located about a two-and-a-half hour drive south of Chicago. Rivian is based in California and has a facility in Plymouth.
Rivian spokeswoman Kelli Felker told the Detroit Free Press earlier this week that the cause of the fire, which started the night of Saturday, Aug. 24, remains under investigation. No one was injured and production at the plant was unaffected.
But 55 vehicles were “heavily damaged” in the fire, which caused an estimated $5.5 million in damage, according to the incident report the Free Press obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request to the Normal Fire Department.
According to the report, the fire department responded to a call at about 9:43 p.m. Aug. 24 for a vehicle fire at the Rivian factory. When fire crews arrived at the factory, about 9 minutes later, they found that the fire had “rapidly escalated” and about 12 Rivian pickups and SUVs were “fully involved.” The fire was upgraded from one engine to a three-engine call.
The vehicles were located in the parking lot the automaker used for holding inventory, the report stated. The report said the wind was from the south, pushing the fire north through the group of vehicles.
The first two fire engines reported difficulty securing a water source because some of the hydrants were not operating. But the engines were eventually able to get water on the burning vehicles and cleared the scene around 2:30 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 25. The report stated that after confirming all fires were out, “the scene was turned back over to Rivian.”
In a section of the report titled “Ignition,” under “Area of Fire Origin,” it says “spontaneous combustion, chemical reaction.” The cause of ignition is listed as “unintentional” and under “Factors Contributing to Ignition,” it reads: “Electrical failure, malfunction, other.”
Matt Swaney, the public information officer for the Normal Fire Department, said those report fields are used for the fire department to list its initial suspicions of what started the fire, but added, “we don’t consider that to be the origin-and-cause report, which will be done later after the fire is extinguished and we bring in our investigators.”
In this case, the town’s decision to pass the investigation on to the company is a typical procedure, said Will Thomas, assistant professor of Business Law at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.
“It is common practice to allow the firm to conduct an internal investigation into what occurred,” Thomas told the Free Press in an email. “The firm, meanwhile, will be expected to share findings with relevant law enforcement authorities and, potentially, face sanctions for any misconduct uncovered. This approach takes advantage of the firm’s comparative advantage — it knows its own business, can identify evidence, get employees to participate in interviews, et cetera — also giving the firm an incentive to do a thorough job diagnosing the problem and fixing the problem going forward.”
Thomas said the main incentive is that government agencies are generally willing to skip sanctioning the firm, or at least be more lenient, if the company can show it has been thorough, compliant and responsive in carrying out an internal investigation and communicating back to the government.
Asked to comment on the report’s listed origin of the fire, if lithium ion batteries played a role in the fire or if the hydrants that were out of service have been fixed, Rivian’s Felker replied in an email saying only that, “the cause is still under investigation.”
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Contact Jamie L. LaReau: jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Investigation continues into a fire that damaged dozens of Rivian EVs
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