The fire is still going as of Friday at the Moss Landing Power Plant in northern Monterey County, though it is largely contained — but parts of Highway 1 remain closed and at least 1,200 residents had to be evacuated.Just as wildfires are raging in Southern California, NorCal got its own dose of a terrible fire and evacuations Thursday night, which continue into Friday. The Bay Area News Group reports that a huge fire at the lithium battery facility at Monterey County’s Moss Landing Power Plant forced the evacuation of at least 1,200 residents, and closed large parts of Highway 1 in the area. Lithium battery fires are particularly difficult to extinguish, and can emit dangerous gases, and this is a whole power plant full of those burning batteries.The world‘s largest lithium battery facility at Vistra Power Plant in Moss Landing, CA continues to burn.Officials have no timeline for extinguishing the toxic blaze, but for reference the last lithium battery fire in California burned for 11 days pic.twitter.com/Cwignva06F— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) January 17, 2025 As of just before noon Friday, a section of Highway 1 in Monterey County remains closed, and those evacuation orders are still in effect. Fortunately, there have been no injuries or deaths reported thus far.HWY 1 in Moss Landing remains closed, hours after a fire breaks out at a plant that produces ion batteries. Evacuations remain in place. Our report tonight on @nbcbayarea and @Telemundo48 pic.twitter.com/J5fbmVK3X9— Damian Trujillo (@newsdamian) January 17, 2025 As KTVU explains, the fire broke out at around 3 pm Thursday afternoon at the plant on Cabrillo Highway. By 6:30 pm Thursday, the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office issued evacuation orders for all residents in a roughly 7,600-acre area of the county. The fire was at its worst between 8 and 9 pm Thursday night.  North County Fire is currently addressing a fire at the Moss Landing Power Plant. As a precaution, individuals in Zones MRY-B047 and MRY-B053 are advised to close their windows and doors, and turn off any air systems until further notice. pic.twitter.com/VlMFxaYhik— California Fire Tracker (@deb8rr) January 17, 2025 “It’s a major incident,” Monterey County spokesperson Nicholas Pasculli told the Bay Area News Group. “All the resources in the county and our neighboring jurisdictions have been deployed to assist with this incident.”The latest update from firefighters at 10 am Friday morning was encouraging. “I’m happy to announce at this point that most of the fire is out,” North County Fire Protection Fire Chief Joel Mendoza told the News Group. “We have very little active fire, very little products of combustion being released into the atmosphere.”🚧 Traffic Update 🚧Road Closures have not changed. They are still placed at the following locations.1. Highway 1 at Struve Rd2. Highway 1 at Molera Rd3. Dolan Rd at Russo RdPlease avoid and take alternate routes. https://t.co/esRkYE0HSq— CHP Monterey (@CHP_Monterey) January 17, 2025 The facility was previously a PG&E natural gas plant, but was sold to the Texas-based Vistra Energy and is now one of the world’s largest lithium battery storage plants. It has had previous fires in September 2021 and February 2022.“This is the fourth fire at that site since 2019,” Monterey County supervisor Glen Church told the Chronicle (he’s including fires at an adjacent facility still owned by PG&E). “This has got to be the last one.” There has been some speculation that this was a Tesla battery fire, though that is incorrect. Per the Bay Area News Group, there are 256 Tesla “Megapack” battery packs at the adjacent PG&E facility, though that facility is not currently affected by this fire. This is a developing story and may be updated.Related: Port of Oakland Lithium Battery Fire Sent Plumes of Black Smoke Over the Bay Sunday [SFist]Image: @BhavikPatel85 via Twitter