Overview
- A containerised lithium battery storage unit at the Schlieben parking area in Bautzener Neustadt caught fire, starting Tuesday afternoon and triggering an immediate multi-agency response.
- Roughly 50 firefighters with the Technisches Hilfswerk and police set up a perimeter and evacuated nearby residents, with some people sheltered in a sports hall and warning apps issued to the public.
- Fire crews used remote nozzles, drones and sustained cooling — the mayor said teams applied about 3,000 litres of water per minute — and expected operations to continue into the following morning.
- The installation was disconnected from the grid so the city reported no power outages, air-quality measurements so far show no hazardous levels, and no injuries have been reported.
- Authorities said the cause is still unknown and investigators and emergency services are assessing damage and explosion risk for the roughly 1.5-megawatt containerised system while monitoring environmental impacts as such storage deployments rise.