A truck full of lithium-ion batteries burned in Los Angeles, shutting down the port and a bridge. It's unclear what the batteries were used for, but Los Angeles' Vincent Thomas Bridge, which leads to the Port of Los Angeles and the nearby Port of Long Beach, has been closed for at least 15 hours as local firefighters kept trucks burning. As of a few hours ago, National Highway 47 was closed in both directions.

A local towing company captured the explosion using a nearby drone:The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach both closed some terminals while the fires continued to burn. Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) spokesman Ren Medina said that as of 12:10 noon Pacific time on Friday, the truck was still on fire and the port and bridge remained closed.Firefighters are nearby and actively monitoring the situation; as of 10 p.m. ET Thursday, the fire is expected to continue for "at least 24-48 hours."As we've seen with multiple electric vehicle battery fires, large, concentrated lithium battery fires are difficult to extinguish: Firefighters sometimes douse the blazes with thousands of gallons of water, only to reignite them when more battery cells heat up to the point of burning. It is said that once the battery temperature rises to a certain level, it will enter a "thermal runaway" state, sometimes re-igniting fires. The Los Angeles Fire Department confirmed it was a thermal runaway incident.Electric vehicle battery packs have particularly dense cells, but we don't yet know if they are related to the case - a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department said it was unclear who owned the truck, let alone what was on it. The Los Angeles Fire Department can only confirm so far that they are lithium-ion batteries.Josh Acosta, owner of Pepe's Towing Services, who filmed the explosion with a drone, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But he apparently plans to release more footage.