Four people were killed in a fiery single-vehicle crash in downtown Toronto early Thursday, while the lone survivor was pulled from the burning car by a passing driver, police say.
The deadly collision happened around 12:10 a.m. on Lake Shore Boulevard E. near Cherry Street.
A Tesla with three men and two women inside was speeding eastbound on Lake Shore when the driver lost control and hit a guardrail, said Toronto police Duty Insp. Phillip Sinclair. The car then careened into a concrete pillar.
"Upon impact, the vehicle then caught fire," Sinclair told reporters.
When firefighters arrived on scene, the car was fully engulfed in flames, said Deputy Fire Chief Jim Jessop, who spoke alongside Sinclair.
Once the blaze was extinguished, firefighters found four people inside the vehicle. All four were pronounced dead at the scene, Sinclair said. They were in their 20s and 30s, he said, but could not provide any more specific information about the deceased.
A woman in her 20s was pulled from the burning car by a passing motorist who stopped to help, according to Sinclair. She was taken to hospital with serious but non-life threatening injuries.
Investigators have interviewed the Good Samaritan, Sinclair said.
"We have been speaking to them, and obviously they are also deeply affected by this incident. It's a very horrific scene for that bystander to step in to," he said.
The circumstances of the crash and causes of the subsequent fire are still under investigation, and police appealed for any witnesses or anyone with dashcam video of the collision to contact Traffic Services.
"Certainly the intensity of the fire is directly linked to the battery cells in the Tesla," Jessop said, quickly adding that emergency services have responded to many "horrible fires" in gasoline-powered vehicles.
"So, I don't want to suggest or comment until the investigation is complete," he continued.
Jessop said, generally, electric vehicle fires require "exponentially more water" to put out. Disposing of the battery cells afterward is especially complex because there is a risk they can catch fire again "weeks and weeks later" due to a process known as thermal runaway, wherein a current causes the battery to heat up, which then increases the current, in turn causing the temperature to continue rising.
Jessop said a battery cell from the Tesla was ejected during the crash. It had to be removed from the scene in a dumpster and covered in sand, he added.
Toronto Fire has spent the last year developing new protocols for battling battery-related fires.
"This is an evolving technology and we will continue to do our research and to work with our jurisdictional peers across North America to make sure we have the best practices in the City of Toronto," he said.