{"id":328586,"date":"2025-10-24T07:45:32","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T07:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/328586\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T07:45:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T07:45:32","slug":"more-than-100-firefighters-battle-hazardous-blaze-at-general-motors-design-studio-in-pasadena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/328586\/","title":{"rendered":"More than 100 firefighters battle hazardous blaze at General Motors design studio in Pasadena"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

More than 100 firefighters and a hazardous materials team battled a fire at General Motors\u2019 design studio Wednesday night in Pasadena, authorities said.<\/p>\n

At one point, a firefighter was trapped in the structure amid the blaze and sent out a mayday call.<\/p>\n

The Pasadena Fire Department responded to the fire in the 600 block of Sierra Madre Villa Avenue at 5:50 p.m., according to department spokesperson Lisa Derderian. The incident was declared a four-alarm fire \u2014 signifying a catastrophic blaze that requires the mobilization of significant fire department resources \u2014 due to the scale of the structure and the hazardous materials involved.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A firefighter is among dozens battling a fire Wednesday at the General Motors design studio in Pasadena.<\/p>\n

(Hon Wing Chiu \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the largest structure fires we\u2019ve had in Pasadena in many, many years,\u201d Derderian said. <\/p>\n

The fire was knocked down at 7:22 p.m., and the cause was under investigation, she said. <\/p>\n

In a statement Thursday, a spokesperson for General Motors said that the fire was contained to a single concept vehicle and did not spread to other cars or the building. The facility remains closed temporarily.<\/p>\n

It took firefighters more than an hour to track down the source of the blaze as thick smoke engulfed the 149,000-square-foot campus. General Motors invested more than $71 million<\/a> in 2021 to build the three-building facility as a new base for its Advanced Design Center.<\/p>\n

A hazardous materials crew was called in to assist due to reports of lithium ion batteries burning. Crews cannot use water to extinguish lithium ion battery fires, as doing so can cause a destabilizing chemical reaction, leading more batteries to catch fire or explode.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirefighters on scene have trained in scenarios like this, but it does put a different twist on extinguishing fires,\u201d Derderian said.<\/p>\n

Large lithium ion battery fires release toxic gases such as hydrogen fluoride and can take several hours or even days to render safe. <\/p>\n

\"Firefighters <\/p>\n

The fire burned lithium ion batteries and concept cars at the General Motors facility, officials said.<\/p>\n

(Hon Wing Chiu \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n

There was a mayday call when a firefighter became trapped inside the fire-engulfed building Wednesday evening. But fire crews were able to locate him and pull him out of the structure without injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did not wish to be transported [to a hospital], but it was a very scary few minutes there until they determined that he was OK,\u201d Derderian said.<\/p>\n

It could take several days to determine the cause of the fire due to the \u201ccomplex nature of the building and the size,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very large facility on the east end of town,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

General Motors thanked fire departments for their swift action in extinguishing the fire, the spokesperson said, and was fully cooperating in the ongoing investigation to determine the cause.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 100 firefighters and a hazardous materials team battled a fire at General Motors\u2019 design studio Wednesday…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":328587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,163410,163414,163415,25076,163411,5025,12768,163416,66693,163413,163412,3043,2961,61013,224,5337,5338,32495],"class_list":{"0":"post-328586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-catastrophic-blaze","11":"tag-chain-reaction","12":"tag-concept-car","13":"tag-crew","14":"tag-derderian","15":"tag-fire","16":"tag-firefighter","17":"tag-general-motor","18":"tag-general-motors","19":"tag-hazardous-fire","20":"tag-hazardous-material-team","21":"tag-hour","22":"tag-la","23":"tag-lithium-ion-battery","24":"tag-los-angeles","25":"tag-losangeles","26":"tag-pasadena","27":"tag-structure"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115428034860925579","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}