Carmel firefighters try to prepare and plan for a variety of emergency situations, but a fire alarm at a local car dealership at 6 a.m. Sept. 15 presented “unique challenges,” according to Carmel Fire Department spokesman Tim Griffin.

When firefighters arrived at Audi Indianapolis on 96th Street, they discovered heavy smoke coming from an electric vehicle on a maintenance lift. They quickly got the blaze under control but wanted to remove the vehicle from the area because lithium ion batteries can reignite and make it difficult for fires to be fully extinguished.

CFD worked with dealership employees, who soon arrived on scene, to lower the vehicle from the lift, place it on vehicle dollies and use manpower and a forklift to push it to a safer area, according to a CFD Facebook post about the incident. Firefighters used water to “keep the fire in check” throughout the process, the post stated.

A CFD engine followed the vehicle to the salvage yard as a precaution in case a fire ignited again en route.

CFD spokesman Tim Griffin said the vehicle was not charging at the time of the incident and that a cause of the blaze has not been determined. He said the fire did not spread to the building or other vehicles, but that smoke may have caused some damage. One firefighter suffered a minor injury, he said.

Griffin said CFD hasn’t trained for this exact situation but that firefighters were prepared to think on their feet.

“We train for scenarios that will be similar or that give our crews the ability to think outside the box on what they need to do in a quick manner to overcome those situations,” Griffin said. “That’s what they did.”

CFD is seeing an increased number of battery-related fires, although most do not ignite in electric vehicles, Griffin said. Departments across the nation are continuing to learn and evolve firefighting techniques as battery-powered vehicles and other items become more prevalent.

“Electric cars pose different challenges for us. If there’s a major car wreck, we’ve done trainings on where we need to do extrications or cut, because we’re going to have charged power lines in cars in different places, so we need to make sure we’re up to date and always training,” Griffin said. “As technology changes, so do the challenges of firefighting.”

Current reached out to Audi Indianapolis for comment but did not immediately receive a response.