Monday evening, a 2-alarm commercial fire occurred at the Tesla factory in Fremont, which has experienced several fires over the past decade.
According to a press release from the Fremont Fire Department, the fire “started inside an oven” and was extinguished “less than an hour after crews arrived on scene.”
Fire officials said no injuries were reported by public safety personnel or Tesla employees.
When contacted by Business Insider, the Fremont Fire Department said they could not share any additional information about how the fire started or what type of furnace it came from. Firefighters are investigating the cause.
Several fires have broken out at the Fremont plant over the years. In 2021, a fire caused by “molten aluminum and hydraulic fluid” occurred in an automobile manufacturing stamping machine. The FFD, along with Tesla’s fire response team, helped bring the fire under control, Business Insider previously reported.
In 2019, the FFD quickly extinguished a fire in an area containing hazardous waste. No injuries were reported.
CNBC reported in 2018 that the Tesla factory’s paint shop had experienced four fires in four years.
The Fremont plant is mired in other hot-button controversies.
Black workers at the plant said they faced widespread racial abuse and discrimination at the plant — and that CEO Elon Musk failed to intervene. Reuters reported that the company now faces a class-action lawsuit from 6,000 black employees, some of whom worked at the Fremont plant. ease.
And in May, California regulators accused the plant of releasing tons of illegal air pollutants, CBS reported. The plant has already paid more than $750,000 to resolve dozens of air quality violations at its plant.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District is seeking an abatement order to force Tesla to mitigate air pollution. Tesla also faces a lawsuit from the Environmental Democracy Project over its air quality violations, CNBC reported.
Representatives for Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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