Stamford firefighters extinguished a burning Tesla on East Main Street Thursday.

STAMFORD —City fire officials say it took them more than 40 minutes Thursday to extinguish a burning Tesla.

Stamford Fire Capt. Phillip Hayes said crews responded to the burning car, located behind the Blue Ginger Restaurant on East Main Street, around 11:20 a.m. Thursday.

Firefighters found the Tesla "heavily involved in flames," Hayes said.

Firefighters stretched a hose and began "pouring 200 gallons of water per minute onto and into the vehicle," Hayes said.

More crews soon arrived and a total of 600 gallons of water per minute was needed to douse the flames, he said.

It took crews 42 minutes to extinguish the blaze, according to Hayes, who along with Deputy Chief Eric Lorenz noted the difficulty of fighting fires in electric vehicles.

“A normal car fire usually requires no more than a single hose line,” said Lorenz, who was the incident commander for the fire. “But we know from other fire departments’ experiences that large amounts of water are the only solution when compared to a traditional vehicle fire.”

Hayes said this fire may have been easier than other electric car blazes "because the entire bank of batteries dropped on the ground underneath the vehicle, where firefighters were focusing their fire attack."

Stamford and other hazmat teams in Fairfield County responded to the scene. Officials with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and other agencies remained at the scene until 4:30 p.m., cleaning up the area and preparing for the vehicle to be moved to a safe location, Hayes said.

“This is no routine car fire,” Lorenz said. “It requires special handling.”

No one was injured in the fire, Hayes said.  The Stamford Fire Marshal's Office is investigating the cause of the blaze.

Ben Lambert can be reached at william.lambert@hearstmediact.com

Ben Lambert covers police and public safety for the Register. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, he has worked on the behalf of the Valley Advocate, MassLive, The Register Citizen, and now, the New Haven Register. He spends far too much time thinking about the Boston Celtics.