Moss Landing Fire: Summary
- Jeff Jorgenson
- May 14
- 4 min read
We’re taking a break from our six part series to give an update on the Moss Landing fire recovery. Moss Landing is right up the road from Mission City Research and our local entities and representatives have been very helpful in helping us with updates.
As has been well reported: on January 16, 2025 at approximately 3pm, a fire broke out in the Moss300 building at the Vistra Energy battery storage facility in Moss Landing.
In Fire at Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility: What we know so far Andy Colthorpe from Energy Storage News provides a thorough review of the fire itself and the background of how Moss Landing evolved into its current configuration as well as the story of previous fires at the location.
The EPA was involved very early on providing monitoring and testing of air, water and soil.
Here’s their report from Jan 18th - EPA Air Monitoring Results Near Moss Landing Vistra Battery Fire Not Exceeding Health Standards. If you have questions here is the EPA Contact: Mikayla Rumph (rumph.mikayla@epa.gov) - (213) 317-5259
On Feb 19th Moss300 re-ignited. North Monterey County Fire Chief Joel Mendoza, who ran point on the response, assured everyone “The fire burned through [Tuesday] night, and by Wednesday morning there were only some parts smoldering. Then it burned out throughout the day.” “We’ve been saying all along that batteries exposed to heat that didn’t burn can ignite,” he said. “We were hoping that it wouldn’t happen, but it did.”
As Max Chun and Tania Ortiz from the Santa Cruz Lookout report: “Lithium battery fires are notoriously difficult to put out, as water is insufficient and can make the situation worse by causing a dangerous reaction. Typically, fire crews have to let these kinds of fires burn out by themselves.”
On March 7th, the EPA warned future flare-ups at Moss Landing Battery Plant possible. But to date none have been reported.
So it appears that the Moss300 fire has burned itself out. A slew of articles pointed out the fire was unlikely to be replicated because:
The battery technology is a nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) type which has largely been replaced with the newer lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries. (More about these in Part 2)
The batteries are housed in a repurposed space which was not designed for battery storage and lacks modern compartmentalization and fire suppression measures.
Julian Spector’s Canary Media article covers all this ground to conclude: Why we don’t need to worry too much about the latest grid battery fire. As he explains: “Two major fire safety codes govern grid battery installations today: Most states, including California, subscribe to International Fire Code (IFC) guidance on large battery installations, while the remainder adhere to the National Fire Protection Association’s standard, NFPA 855. Committees of battery experts update these codes on a three-year cycle with the best new information (and a public comment process). But those cycles kicked off only recently.”
Additional standards (UL 9540, UL 9540A and NFP 855), rules (PUC: General Order (GO) 167-C, Enforcement of Maintenance and Operation Standards for Electric Generating Facilities and Energy Storage Systems), and laws (Assembly Bill 303, the Battery Energy Safety & Accountability Act and SB283 The Clean Energy Safety Act) have been proposed and are in motion.
Recovery
Vistra has set up a Business Claims Site for those area businesses that suffered losses and funded $450K via the Moss Landing Fire Relief Fund being administered by the Community Foundation of Monterey.
A couple of updates from the Community Foundation of Monterey:
The fund was established by Vistra and is not soliciting donations.
Vistra is no longer accepting applications for gift card distributions.
A full and transparent investigation has been launched with Vistra working with:
California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA)
United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA)
California Air Resources Control Board (CARB)
Office of Environmental Health Hazmat Assessment (OEHHA)
California Waterboards
California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife
California Dept. of Toxic Substances Controls
California Dept. of Public Health
CalRecycle
County of Monterey Health Department Environmental Health Bureau
Reports to the County at the County press briefings are streamed live to the public via the County’s Youtube and Facebook. They are archived and can be viewed at your leisure.
The March Moss Landing March 18th update included this presentation giving the latest status at the site: Moss300 BESS Structure Fire & HAZMAT Incident.
Vistra is posting all updates on their Moss Landing Response site. Which has a nicely formatted and up-to-date Recovery Process Overview and Environmental Testing pages. As well as a Public Statement Archive.
The latest:
The county itself has a very rich set of pages under the Ready Monterey County website.
Current Emergency Information which has a list of Safety and information resources including a Vistra section.
Disaster Recovery which is tracking Battery Hazard Mitigation and Removal
And an excellent FAQ page.
It is still disturbing that there is no root cause found. However we had an emergency, a heroic response and are following a plan to recover. A feel good story…NOT SO FAST!
There are 2 ongoing concerns which are troubling and need follow-up.
Lingering health issues for many residents
The Moss Landing NIMBY Effect. How safety is being tackled by industry efforts to replace NMC and Lithium Ion batteries technologies with more efficient and less toxic materials to address fears regarding battery storage from other communities.
Next up: Moss Landing Fire: Battery Primer and NIMBY reaction
