Major fire at Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility, California, multi-day incident

In January 2025, a fire broke out during the afternoon in one building of the Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility (Phase 1, MOSS300) in Moss Landing, Monterey County, California, United States, a large grid-scale lithium-ion battery energy storage facility operated and owned by Vistra Energy. The affected phase was housed in a large repurposed building with battery racks arranged throughout a single enclosed space, rather than in the modular containerised units more common at installations of this size. Local authorities activated their emergency operations centre at a high level of response, and in the order of one to two thousand residents were evacuated. A nearby major highway was closed for approximately 12 hours. The fire diminished the following evening and evacuated residents were permitted to return. A reignition occurred several weeks later and was brought back under control within about 24 hours. At the time of the underlying public reporting, roughly two thirds of the battery units on site, manufactured by LG Energy Solution, had been de-energised and removed for off-site recycling. The site used NMC lithium-ion chemistry. Three earlier thermal events had been reported at the site and at a neighbouring facility in 2021 and 2022, all described as more limited overheating incidents that did not result in fires of this scale. The cause of the January 2025 fire was undetermined at the time of the underlying public reporting, with a formal investigation in progress. This entry reflects only the publicly confirmed facts of the incident and the response, and a follow-up entry is warranted once investigation conclusions are published.

Causation for the January 2025 event at the Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility remained under investigation at the time of reporting, so the following are factors noted in public reporting rather than findings. Sources described the affected phase as using a repurposed building enclosure with batteries in close proximity throughout, in contrast to the modular containerised approach used at most other installations of comparable size. Commentators quoted in public reporting observed that the scale of the loss appeared related to the fire load available within a single enclosed space and the limited physical barriers to propagation. Public reporting on the site's earlier thermal incidents in 2021 and 2022 associated them with sprinkler and cooling system issues that released water onto battery racks made with LG Energy Solution cells. Those earlier events did not result in fires of this scale, but were reported as indicating more than one failure mode at the site.

Lessons drawn from publicly observable response activity, pending final investigation.

1. Where grid-scale storage is installed inside a single large building rather than in separate containers, review the total fire load in each enclosure and the internal barriers, compartment walls and separation distances that limit propagation between racks.
2. Treat a pattern of repeated minor thermal events at a site as a trigger for a documented root cause review, and confirm the underlying issues are closed out before adding further capacity.
3. Agree evacuation thresholds, decision-making roles and public communication protocols with local emergency management before an incident, since evacuations at this scale must be initiated within hours.
4. Plan in advance for reignition during the days and weeks after the initial event, including continued monitoring, exclusion zones and a safe method for de-energising and removing damaged units for off-site recycling.
5. Where water-based suppression or cooling systems are installed above or around battery racks, verify that inadvertent release cannot itself initiate a thermal event.
6. Include the cost of extended site loss, decommissioning and community disruption in the business case for fire safety measures, as public reporting following incidents of this type has described material financial impairment. Any final investigation findings, when published, should be treated as the authoritative source for technical lessons.

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