AUTONEWS

Thousands of BMW, Mercedes and VW cars were reduced to ashes. The total value is 300 million EURO

Thousands of brand new BMW, Mercedes and VW cars were reduced to ashes in the fire that broke out on the Fremantle Highway ship, with the total value of the vehicles estimated at around €300 million.

The Fremantle Highway, the freighter with almost 4,000 cars on board, caught fire in the North Sea on July 25. Since then, firefighters have been fighting day and night to extinguish the flames and save the ship from sinking. From the first hours of the intervention, the authorities announced that the fire was spreading rapidly due to the extremely flammable cargo: 3,784 cars, of which almost 500 were electric vehicles.

Miraculously, however, the firefighters managed to stop the flames from spreading. The mastodon was then towed to the port of Eemshaven, where the second stage of the rescue will begin: unloading the cars.

Fire broke out because of an electric car?...It is not yet certain, but from the first information circulating it seems that the fire on the Fremantle Highway may have started due to the battery of an electric car, which caught fire. It is known that in such situations it is almost impossible to put out the fire, because it reignites almost immediately, so the theory is as plausible as possible.

Unfortunately, one crew member lost his life as a result of this fire, and 22 others were forced to abandon ship, some even jumped into the cold waters of the North Sea, and were recovered by rescue teams.

Thousands of BMW, Mercedes or Rolls-Royce cars burned...There is still no official exact figure, but local journalists have learned that on the Fremantle Highway were cars made by Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and, according to Automobilwoche, “a four-figure number of BMW Group cars”. And here it would be about Mini models and even a Rolls-Royce.

But miraculously it seems that about 800 cars escaped the inferno that consumed the freighter for nearly 10 days.

“We did an inspection from deck 5, the ramp deck. It showed that decks 1, 2, 3 and 4 are mostly undamaged. But as we climb, the situation worsens. Deck 8 is very badly damaged and partially collapsed. That shows how strong the fire was,” says Peter Berdowski, CEO of the company that owns the Fremantle Highway, quoted by autoweek.nl.

The value of the destroyed cars: 300 million euros...Experts estimate that the value of the cars destroyed in the fire could amount to approximately 300 million euros. But until all the vehicles are unloaded, no exact estimate can be made.

Badly damaged, the freighter is to be towed to another location after all the cars have been unloaded.

Afterwards, depending on how badly the structure was damaged by this fire, it will either be dismantled or repaired.

Author: Radu Țuțulan