Teslas going up in flames are fairly regular news nowadays, even if the Internet seems always amused, often amazed and sometimes downright terrified at the pyrotechnics Elon Musk’s lithium-ions can produce with seeming spontaneity.

Now, to be sure, as the Silicon Valley giant is wont to protest, car fires are hardly new, gasoline being not exactly a fire retardant, and the internal combustion engine often producing its own fair share of fireballs.

Neither is a safe situation. Neither is likely to leave much of a vehicle after the conflagration is over. And, other than the uniqueness of an electric vehicle going up in flames, neither should be, save for the Internet’s insatiable need for pyrotechnics – that should be read “sensationalism” this time – particularly newsworthy.

What is new, what should be considered truly frightening, however, is the incredible difficulty fire crews are having in extinguishing some of these Tesla fires and, more alarming, the lengths they need to go to prevent said batteries from re-igniting.

On June 1, for instance, a Model S in Belgium caught fire while charging at a hotel Supercharger station. Firefighters, after a protracted battle, were able to extinguish the flames. OK, nothing new about a recharging incident or that battery fires can take some time to extinguish.

What happened next, however, was startling, at least to Yours Truly. After they were satisfied the initial inferno was sufficiently snuffed, the local fire department hoisted up the smouldering Model S and then submerged it in a container filled with water, the Antwerp authorities noting that Tesla batteries can continue to generate dangerous levels of heat for days after the initial fire has been extinguished.

In fact, the official procedure is to immerse the vehicle in the special container for 24 hours and then check the batteries for residual heat with a thermal camera. “In previous fires, it has sometimes taken between three days and a week for the battery to be completely cooled,” said a department spokesperson, noting “It takes such a long time to properly cool the battery of such an electric car and the experience of our fire departments and others teaches us that completely immersing the vehicle in the water is the most effective way.”

In fact, Antwerp’s submersion tactics would seem to be just an exaggerated form of Tesla’s official recommendation for dealing with battery fires, the company suggesting that fire departments “use large amounts of water to cool the battery” and to “always establish or request an additional water supply.”

Whether this means fire departments everywhere will have to be equipped with special Tesla tanks and cranes to lift two-ton Model Xes into their portable bathtubs remains to be seen, but certainly the Mountain View, Calif., fire department might welcome such an upgrade. In March of last year, a Model X that caught fire after a fatal accident near the scenic town re-ignited days after the initial crash. In fact, according to Mountain View’s fire chief, Juan Diaz, it reignited six days later, “the temperature inside those cells increasing to the point of ignition” nearly a week after the original flames had been quenched.

Indeed, fire departments are getting—let’s call it “a little cautious” about dealing with the lithium-ion in electric vehicles. In one case near Landeck, Austria, no fewer than 35 firefighters and five trucks fought a relatively small Tesla fire. Another California Model S, this one only three months old, spontaneously combusted after being towed to a local tire repair shop and, even after being doused with 2,000 gallons — about three to five times the amount needed to put out gasoline-fed car fires — it re-ignited no less than three times.

According to the Daily Mail, firefighters had to spend “another 10 hours at the scene to keep the car under control” after it had been towed to the local wrecking yard.

Nor is Tesla the only “electrified” vehicle to be dumped unceremoniously into a container of water. In March, Dutch firefighters immersed a BMW i8 in a water-filled container for 24 hours after it started smoking, again seemingly spontaneously, in the showroom. Fortunately, the employees were able to get the Bimmer out of the building. Interestingly, this Yellow Submarine treatment seems to have become sufficiently commonplace that the local fire department had a crane and container handy, which it quickly brought to the dealership, the plug-in supercar soon swimming with the fishes.

The problem, as has been written many times, is the lithium-ion that powers virtually every current electrified vehicle. More specifically, the issue is one of “thermal runaway,” a particularly nasty feedback loop that sees the fire feed on itself. The only solution, it seems, is to use torrents of water to cool the core. And, as fire departments around the world are finding out, to ensure that the flames, once initially extinguished, don’t reignite.

The issues are manifold. One is that, although there is no evidence EVs are more prone to self-immolation, their fires are unquestionably more difficult to put out. More importantly, the techniques involved are completely different and require specific training, not only for firefighters but for all first responders. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, police responding to a recent Florida crash tried to douse the flames with a department-issue fire extinguisher, which apparently had absolutely no effect.

Training is necessary and, in fact, ongoing. According to Bloomberg’s Chester Dawson, about a quarter of the United States’ 1.1 million firefighters have taken courses in how to deal with electric vehicle fires, including the high-voltage orange cables that connect battery, motor and inverter. And it bears noting that all automakers producing EVs have been proactive in educating fire departments on how to deal with battery fires. Tesla, for instance, has donated many cars for training purposes and has an extensive blog aimed at first responders.

Two ongoing issues stand out, however. Musk’s tired old refrain that gas cars burn as frequently EVs is starting to seem disingenuous considering how much more difficult the latter are to extinguish.

Secondly, as automakers look to get more range and power out of their electric vehicles, battery voltage will only increase. Eight hundred volts will soon be commonplace and automakers are already talking about bumping that up to 1,200 V. EVs are still a relative rarity, but, if the revolution continues, we may need entire lakes to contain our smouldering Teslas.