LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Nevada’s Republican governor needs so as to add firefighters to a multi-state emergency response workforce created after a lithium truck fireplace final summer time shut down I-15 close to the Nevada-California state line, warning the Division of Transportation’s board of administrators that sure emergency responders will not be ready to deal with lithium fires.
“If you were talking about the Lithium fires, I think it would be conducive to have fire there,” Lombardo mentioned at a gathering of NDOT’s month-to-month board of administrators in February.
Final month, NDOT introduced $20,000 from federal cash to carry a peer trade in Las Vegas in April on account of the July 2024 lithium fireplace that began when a truck flipped on its aspect on the I-15 close to Baker in San Bernardino County. Visitors was halted for the higher a part of two days. The aptly named I-15/I-11 Emergency Operations Peer Trade will embrace legislation enforcement and different emergency responders from Utah, California, Arizona and Nevada.
Lombardo instructed the NDOT board of administrators that he has instructed emergency administration crews “to do some comprehensive training and/or awareness on how we respond to lithium fires.” That instruction got here after a Homeland Safety Fee board assembly at which Clark County’s newly-appointed fireplace chief.
“Billy Samuels from Clark County FD was giving us a response to the Cybertruck incident,” Lombardo mentioned, referring to a Cybertruck explosion outdoors of Las Vegas Trump Worldwide Resort attributed to a former Inexperienced Beret from Colorado on New Yr’s Day. The governor identified that that individual fireplace was not a lithium fireplace, however Samuels supplied an replace on their readiness for such fires.
“And they’re still feeling their way on how the hell we deal with these lithium fires,” Lombardo mentioned. “Fortunately, that wasn’t a lithium fire. But that was part of the conversation.”
He continued: “So I think it would be just as important in this endeavor especially after what we experienced over there on I-15.”
Samuels grew to become fireplace chief on Jan. 23 after his predecessor, former fireplace chief John Steinbeck, received an election for state senate within the November 2024 election.
Samuels and a spokeswoman for Clark County didn’t reply to the 8 Information Now Investigators request for touch upon this matter.
