A fiery car crash over the weekend in Edgartown briefly cut off power for thousands of Vineyarders.
Edgartown Police reported that a white 2018 BMW M3, driven by Igor Gomes Goncalves — the sole occupant in the car — crashed into an Eversource pole at around 1:20 am on Saturday at the intersection of Meshacket Road and West Tisbury Road.
Goncalves is facing charges of negligent operation of a motor vehicle and marked lanes, according to a report from Edgartown Police.
The driver sustained no injuries, according to acting Edgartown Police Chief Chris Dolby.
Edgartown Police Officer Jeff Trudel wrote in his report that he could see an “orange glow of flames on the back of Morning Glory Farm” as he approached the Jernegan Pond Road area on Saturday.
“The vehicle’s engine compartment was fully engulfed in flames,” Trudel wrote. “The telephone pole that was struck was fractured approximately halfway up the pole, and was also engulfed in flames.”
Officers ran up to the vehicle and found it unoccupied, with no one in the surrounding area, the report reads.
Police reported that there were a series of small explosions before the vehicle was fully engulfed in flames. “Officers blocked off the roadway and waited for the Edgartown Fire Department to respond to extinguish the fire,” Trudel wrote.
Goncalves left the scene, but later reported the incident to police at the Edgartown Police station.
The report states that Goncalves explained, translated by a friend, that a deer entering the roadway caused him to swerve and strike the pole.
Trudel wrote he returned to the crash scene to help with traffic control after handing Goncalves a citation.
JWL Transport and Eversource cooperated to get the vehicle parts off of the road. Trudel wrote that Eversource was able to replace the pole by around 7 am, and Meshacket Road was reopened afterward.
Dolby said in an email there was no indication as to what exactly started the fire. “The guy was very lucky, to say the least,” he said.
Priscilla Ress, an Eversource spokesperson, told the Times 4,800 customers were without power Saturday morning. Most of the customers came back online within five minutes. “2,100 customers experienced an hourlong power outage as our crews made repairs,” Ress said. “A final 37 customers had power back on by 7am.”
Time to get those dangerous gasoline powered fire
hazards off the road.
Don, you made a good point: electric cars
are much less likely to burn.
Gasoline cars are about 60 times more likely
to start on fire than electric cars.
https://leahy.substack.com/p/gasoline-vehicles-are-60x-more-likely
To maybe forestall ill-informed commentary:
“As compiled by goodcarbadcar.net, hybrid vehicles have the greatest likelihood of catching fire at 3,474.5 incidents per 100,000 sales, followed by gas-powered cars at 1,529.9 incidents and, in third, electric vehicles at 25.1 incidents.” Motor Week Aug 15, 2024
I believe these facts second Don’s motion.
The difference is it would take every fire engine on the island to put out a burning Tesla……and that’s not including if the battery reignites in he tow yard a week later. (No really….not making this up)
Brian– Yeah– there was one case of a tesla
catching fire in a junkyard a few weeks after getting there.
https://www.autoblog.com/news/tesla-model-s-fire-junkyard-video
the cause has not been determined—\
but then we have this —
https://vineyardgazette.com/news/2023/12/28/fire-breaks-out-jwl-transport-junkyard
the cause has not been determined…
Any questions ?
Like gasoline leaking out of wrecked car in a tow yard?
Brian, firefighters are trained in how to handle an electric vehicle fire and the possibility of it reigniting later. Some fire chiefs believe it is best to let the fire burn itself out so there is no risk of reignition later. Firefighters have been instructed to have at least 3000 gallons of water available to extinguish an electric car fire.
Most professionals know how to do their jobs and they don’t need us acting as armchair quarterbacks.
https://www.motortrend.com/features/you-are-wrong-about-ev-fires/
Bruce– Thanks for taking the time to look up the facts.
I have posted these kind of
numbers before– But for some reason a few
people refuse to accept the fact that ev’s are
way less likely to catch fire than gas
vehicles. Of course, for the people who are glued to
Fox news, or other conservative outlets
they get to see every single EV that catches fire.
And they have a erroneous belief based on fear.
It’s similar to the coverage of migrant crime–
Such is the power of manipulative media.
Those are disturbing facts.
The data must be reevaluated.
Is the hybrid count large enough to make the rate significant?
Is age a factor?
Are hybrid fires due to batteries or gasoline?
Why does The Times find it necessary to report that Mr. Goncalves needed his friend to translate? Does Edgartown have a court certified translator at its disposal? Using anything other than a certified translator can make incriminating utterances inadmissible.
And very lucky this fire didn’t spread with the current very dry conditions. Ty fire personnel
“The report states that Goncalves explained, translated by a friend,”
Goncalves was under no obligation to speak with the police.
He chose to speak about the incident in a language the police did not understand which his friend interpreted.
You think that the Edgartown Court has certified translators of all languages spoken on Island on call 7/24?
Why do you read The Times?
They get so few things ‘Right’…
He should have just hit the deer
Would have helped with the tick problem too. Excellent comment.
Kill all the deer.
Make the Island great.
If you look closely you will notice that, how this happened and the single occupant of the vehicle, get away of this crash without a single scratch. Also leave the scene of the crash and appear later with another person, to translate when we all know there is no need for, because there is many way to do so. In my opinion the person that appeared was not the same person that was driving the car. Way to gets away with DUI!!
What should be done?