Car Carrier “Morning Midas” Still Ablaze Off Alaska Coast
It started with smoke. Then flames. The “Morning Midas,” a 600-foot car carrier, caught fire on June 3, 2025, while cruising 300 miles south of Adak, Alaska. Its cargo? Over 3,000 vehicles, including nearly 70 electric and 861 hybrid cars. The crew of 22? Safely evacuated. The ship? Still floating but engulfed in flames.
Timeline of Chaos
The distress call came at 3:15 p.m. Smoke was spotted. The fire had reportedly started on a deck loaded with electric vehicles (EVs). The ship’s firefighting efforts failed. By nightfall, all crew members had abandoned ship, rescued by the motor vessel “Cosco Hellas.” A massive blaze, uncontrollable and relentless, continued to burn.
By June 5, the ship remained adrift. Salvage vessels had been dispatched but were miles away. It’ll be June 9 before help truly arrives. Meanwhile, the ship, loaded with volatile fuels—including 350 metric tons of gas and over 1,500 metric tons of low-sulfur fuel oil—is a potential environmental catastrophe waiting to happen.
Electric Vehicle Batteries and Fire Nightmares
Lithium-ion batteries in EVs are notorious for “thermal runaway.” Sounds high-tech, right? It’s not. It’s a chain reaction where an overheating battery cell sets off the others. Once started, these fires hit over 1,000°C, making them nearly impossible to extinguish. Throw water on it? You might make it worse. Some EV fires have taken 150,000 liters of water to put out. Compare that to a gas-powered car fire. Yeah, there’s no contest.
While EV fires are rare compared to gas vehicle fires, they’re far more notable (and dangerous). Damaged batteries? Overcharging? Water exposure? All potential triggers. It’s no wonder insurers are paying extra attention as EVs flood the market.
When it comes to a disaster like this, you might think the London insurance market would be sweating bullets over covering such a massive loss. But here’s the thing—that’s not how marine insurance works. It’s a team sport.
For high-stakes policies like the one for this 600-foot car carrier, the risk doesn’t sit squarely on one insurer’s shoulders. Instead, it’s sliced up and spread across multiple syndicates. At the heart of this system is Lloyd’s of London, a historic hub where risk-sharing is a finely tuned art. Syndicates band together, each taking a piece of the pie, ensuring no single player takes on a financial stomachache alone.
And there’s more. On top of sharing the immediate risk, reinsurance comes into play. What’s reinsurance? Think of it as insurance for insurers. It allows companies to hand off chunks of risk to even bigger players, effectively creating a worldwide safety net. This means that when a €65 million ($74M) ship ignites off the Alaskan coast, the fallout doesn’t fully circle back to London alone. The financial hit is diluted, dispersed across insurers and reinsurers globally.
Here’s why this matters. Incidents like the “Morning Midas” fire—massive, dramatic, expensive as all get-out—are exactly why the marine insurance world operates like this. With the flames still raging and costs piling up (cargo damage, potential oil spills, the works), this web of shared responsibility ensures no one player gets burned beyond recovery. It’s a deliberately built buffer for the big, bad catastrophes that no single insurer could handle solo.
A Reminder of the Risks
While reports of thermal runaway incidents make headlines, that’s not the sole reason insurance companies aren’t fully sold on EVs yet. The bigger issue? Costs. Replacing an EV’s high-tech battery? That can run anywhere from $5,000 to $17,000, depending on the car. Even minor repairs can rack up major bills thanks to all the advanced components packed into these vehicles.
Then there’s the perception problem. Electric vehicle fires sound scary, but the reality is, they’re incredibly rare. Want odds? Gas vehicles have about 1,530 fires for every 100,000 sold. Hybrids? Nearly 3,475 per 100,000. And EVs? Just 25 per 100,000. It’s not even close. On a per-mile basis, Tesla claims their cars are 11 times less likely to catch fire than gas cars. Yet, when an EV fire does happen, it burns brighter, hotter, and grabs more headlines. That kind of visibility has insurers understandably on edge.
Environmental Concern and What’s Next
Here’s the scary part. The longer Morning Midas fire burns, the greater the environmental risk. An oil spill or fuel explosion could devastate marine ecosystems near Alaska. And the clock’s ticking. Salvors from Resolve Marine are still days out.
Can they regain control of the ship? Maybe. But as of now, it’s still drifting. Flames still alive. Monitoring systems onboard are barely functioning. What’s the plan if it gets worse? Right now, it seems everyone’s in wait-and-watch mode.