June 25, 2021 • 20 mins
Speaking out publicly for the first time about the conservatorship that has controlled her life for 13 years, Britney Spears pleaded with a judge to end it and detailed how over the years she has been forced to work against her will, be drugged, and prevented from removing a birth control device so she could have more kids. Spears mentioned that she just wanted to be heard and the conservatorship to be ended without another psychological evaluation. Lisa Richwine, entertainment reporter at Reuters, was on the scene in the courtroom and details what she heard and why it may still be a long road to #FreeBritney.
Next, federal regulators are warning firefighters about the risks of putting out electric vehicle fires. One of the big issues is the lithium-ion batteries that power the cars. When the cars catch fire, the stored energy in those batteries often heat up and continue to reignite. In one case it took seven hours and 28,000 gallons of water to put the electric car fire out completely. Regulators are calling for more firefighter training on how to put them out. Cyrus Farivar, investigative tech reporter at NBC News, joins us for more.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Friday, June. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles, and
this is the Daily Dive speaking out publicly for the
first time about the Conservative ship that has controlled her
life for thirteen years. Britney Spears pleaded with the judge
to end it and detailed how over the years she's
(00:20):
been forced to work against her will, be drugged and
prevented from removing a birth control device so she could
have more kids. Spears mentioned that she just wanted to
be heard and the conservatorship to be ended without another
psychological evaluation. Lisa rich Wine, entertainment reporter at Reuter's, was
on the scene in the courtroom and details what she
(00:41):
heard and why it still may be a long road
to free Brittany next. Federal regulators are warning firefighters about
the risks of putting out electrical vehicle fires. One of
the big issues is the lithium ion batteries that power
the cars. When the cars catch fire, the stored energy
and those batteries often heat up and continue need to reignite.
(01:01):
In one case, it took seven hours and twenty eight
thousand gallons of water to put out the electric car
fire completely. Regulators are calling for more firefighter training on
how to put them out. Cyrus Farvar, investigative tech reporter
at NBC News, joins us for more It's news without
the noise. Let's dive in. I wish I could stay
(01:23):
with you on the phone forever, because when I get
off the phone with you, all of a sudden, all
of our hear I hear all these nos, no, no, no,
and then all of a sudden, I get I feel
ganged up on, and I feel bullied, and I feel
left out and alone. Joining us now is Lisa rich Wine,
entertainment reporter at Reuter's. Thanks for joining us, Lisa, thanks
(01:44):
for having me. I wanted to talk about the testimony
that we heard from Britney Spears on Wednesday. Man, very
compelling stuff, something that she hadn't really done, able to
get her message out publicly, and we heard a lot
of Lisa were in the courtroom, so we were able
to get a different perspective there. Hear her voice obviously,
(02:05):
see the fans and supporters that she said had outside
of the courtroom. I mean, there's so much to unpack here,
but you know, she told the judge and the court
she said she's been drugged compelled to work against her will,
She's been prevented from removing a birth control device. She
says she wants to have more kids and get married
and all this stuff, and I mean just really some
(02:25):
compelling stuff that we were able to hear from her. So, Lisa,
if you can help start us off. What did we
hear from her? Well, it really felt like she was
just unloading to the court. I mean, she had not
spoken publicly and make clear she wanted everything to be public.
One of the lawyers suggested that the proceedings be closed
(02:46):
to the public and the media, and she said, no,
I want this to be public. I want everybody to
hear this. And she just spoke very quickly for more
than twenty minutes, just on and on and on that
this happened to me, and this and this, and then
I've been lying with what I've been, you know, showing
the world that you know, on Instagram, she's been saying, oh,
I'm happy, everything is great, and really this is what
(03:08):
I've been going through. And she spoke so fast that
twice the judge asked her to slow down because the
court reporter couldn't keep up with her reading. Reading through
her testimony, I mean she sounded exasperated at times, like
she couldn't get it out fast enough, you know, And
she made mention multiple times that you know, she talked
to them before and she didn't feel like she was
(03:29):
heard and this was that opportunity to get it all out. Yeah,
and she, I mean she really did. She She threw
in a lot of details of a lot of different
incidents and you know, at the end said to the judge,
I wish I could just keep talking to you. You know,
I have so much to say. And you know, clear
clearly made her case heard, and you know her side
(03:52):
of the story. Yeah, she's pleading for the judge to
end her conservatorship that's run by her father. It's kind
of a two pronged thing. It's you know, her her
person and the estate. So and they really control her
entire life. There. Let's talk a little bit more about
the testimony. There was a lot of focus on medications
that she's been given, things that she feels obviously she
(04:12):
doesn't need to take therapies. She said she you know,
in training, in rehearsing for some of her shows, you know,
she's kind of said, I didn't want to do these
dance moves or certain things, and then they put her
on things like lithium and really just messed with her
head in that sense. Yes, um, that that is what
she told the court and how she feels. She clearly
(04:33):
feels like these things were forced on her and that
she didn't have a choice. She was afraid, she was
afraid of how her father would react, you know, and
afraid legally that documents were put in front of her,
that they were scary and she would just sign them
because she didn't know what else to do. And actually
told the judge yesterday that she didn't know previously that
(04:53):
she could petition to have the conservatorship ended, and that
that that now that she knows that that is clearly
what she wants. Just going through her testimony, she said,
I'm scared of people. I don't trust people after what
I've been through. So she's in this really precarious position.
Tell us a little bit more about this conservatorship and
she's been on it, I guess for thirteen years now.
Tell us a little bit more about how that works. Sure, Well,
(05:16):
it started back in two thousand and eight, and you know,
there was a very public troubling time that she had
where she shaved her head and damaged the paparazzi's car
and her finances. Her finances were not doing great and
that was when her father stepped in and the conservatorship
was put in place. And early in that time she
(05:37):
she said that it was a help to her and
that she got her life back together, and she did.
She released another album, she went on tour. She toured
for ten years and played a very successful residency in Vegas.
The idea behind the conservatorship is that, you know, you're
particular protecting the person. Somebody who cares about the person
is protecting them from mismanaging their finances or their health care,
(05:58):
that they just can't make proper decisions, or their subject
to undue influence from outside people. And you know, certainly
if you're a famous person with a lot of money,
that would always be a concern um And you know,
again Britney said at the beginning that that was helpful.
But you know, now she says, I'm I'm I've worked,
I've earned millions of dollars. You know, clearly I'm a
(06:18):
functioning adult and that you know, this just seems ridiculous
to her at this point that she needs this kind
of oversight. Yeah. She came back to that multiple times,
you know, and it's been true for her whole life. Really,
I'm the money maker. I'm doing all this stuff, putting
roofs over people's heads and all that. This isn't working
in the present way, and conservatorships a lot of times
are meant for people with serious disability dementia who really
(06:41):
can't take care of themselves. So you know, she's making
that push saying I'm an adult, I've changed. Let's end this.
There was a statement I guess that was read by
not by her father, but it was from her father.
What did he have to say about all of this? Yeah, yeah,
I mean after she spoke and I think everybody was
really done by it, the attorney representing her father asked
(07:03):
the judge to recess for a few minutes, and after
about twenty minutes, she came back and read a statement
from Jamie Spirits, her father, that basically said that he
was sorry to hear that she's struggling in pain, and
that he loves his daughter very much and this is
her So so that's, you know, all we have heard
from that side at this point. So the next steps Obviously,
(07:24):
this is a very complicated situation. You know, she's pleading
for herself. Obviously, I want out of this. It's not
so simple. You know. One of the themes she kept
going back to as well throughout her testimony is that
I want the Conservative ship to end, but I don't
want to be evaluated psychologically. Again. You know, she she
has a trauma from going through it, so that's one
of the things she kept pleading for. But that's that
(07:46):
might be a problem, you know, to get out of this.
I mean it might it might seem logical that she
has to go through some of these tests just to
prove that right, And yeah, it will be it will
probably be a lengthy process from here. I mean, the
next step will be that she should have she should
follow a petition with the court if she wants to,
(08:07):
and the conservatorship, and it'll be up to the judge
as to how that proceeds. And in California, the burden
is on the person, the Conservatives, the person who is
under the conservatorship, to to prove that they don't need
protection anymore, because you know, the worst thing from the
dosa's point of view would be that, oh, I remove
it and then something horrible happens and you know, you
(08:28):
know she and you realize that she did need the protection. Normally,
what happens is the court will start by sending an
independent investigator to talk with her and uh, you know again,
I'll all size will weigh in, the gaming spirits of
the father and probably her mother will will give you know,
their perspectives on all this. Um. So there'll be a
lot for the judge to take into consideration. What the
(08:50):
family wants, what the independent investigator wants, UM her one
of her co conservators. Now everybody will get to weigh in,
and it'll it'll be a lengthy process. As I mentioned,
you were there in the so you were able to
see everything inside and out. I know she had a
bunch of supporters outside. What was that seemed like she
did a bunch of fans dress up in pink and
(09:10):
some of them had pigtails, and they carry these signs
that say, you know, how stag free Brittany. And you know,
it kind of started out is something that everybody thought
was a little silly. And you know, there was a
documentary that came out this year that shed some light
on her situation, and really I mean, the fans definitely
feel vindicated that their suspicions were right, that that Brittany
(09:32):
was not happy and feels like she was being you know,
controlled too much at this point. But yeah, they were,
you know, it was it was probably about a hundred fans,
I would say, and you know they were they were
thrilled that that she finally got to, you know, speak
with her story and you know, put it, put it
(09:52):
out into the public. Lisa rich Wine, entertainment reporter at Reuter's,
thank you very much for joining us. Thank at this
particular into it took twenty eight thousand gallons of water
to fully put out this fire. By comparison, that is
(10:16):
something like the amount of waters that are American an
average American household uses in two years. Joining us now
is Sirous Farvar, investigative tech reporter at NBC News. Thanks
for joining us, rus my pleasure. You're an interesting story
about fires and electric vehicles. Federal regulators have been warning
that firefighters haven't been trained properly or enough really across
(10:40):
the country to battle some of these things. When these
electric cars go up, some of these fire departments say
that it's kind of like a trick birthday candle. You'll
be able to put it out and then maybe minutes later,
half hour later, it reignites. And it all has to
do with these lithium ion batteries that power these electric cars,
and there's really no space scific way to get around it.
(11:01):
You just have to pour tons of water on it.
Over twenty gallons of water in a few of the
cases that you outline in your story. So Cirrus, tell
us a little bit about what we're seeing with this. Yeah,
that's exactly right. I spoke with Chief Paulard Buck from
the Woodlands, Texas with the Suburb of Houston Fire Department,
and they recently had to deal with a Tesla fire
(11:21):
where first responders arrived at a scene where the bodies
of two men were found later found to be deceased
in the back of a crashed Tesla that had crashed
off of a road and hit a tree and was
on fire. And when that agency responded to that incident,
they found, as you say, yes, that the car did
re ignite. Tesla's as do most electric vehicles, have massive
(11:44):
battery packs below the chassis of the car, basically underneath
the floorboards or what would normally do the floorboards. And yes,
because of the way that lithium ion batteries were. When
they rupture, they can re ignite and they can catch fire,
and especially if they're near something else that can come blast,
so that can catch on fire like a tree or
a house or something else that can cause a lot
(12:06):
of problems for firefighters. So yes, in this particular incident,
it took twenty eight thousand gallons of water to fully
put out this fire. By comparison, that is something like
the amount of waters that are American an average American
household uses in two years. And to further that comparison,
you know a typical car, regular combustion engine that could
(12:26):
be put out fairly quickly with about three hundred gallons
of water, and you know you mentioned twenty thousand gallons,
it took those firefighters seven hours to put it out completely.
So what the other effect of that is is that
you need firefighters kind of on standby to make sure
everything goes out, and the hours spent putting these things out,
(12:46):
maybe they're not prepared for it. Maybe they need to
put these firefighters in a different location to help somewhere else.
So this is the other consequence they can't leave. They
have to keep monitoring these things. Yeah, that's right cheap.
In this town, Woodlands, Texas at like to quote unquote babysitting,
and you know, for their department and their relatively small department,
they have eight companies. They had two of those companies
(13:08):
that had to quote unquote baby said this fire for
for many hours. And yes, from the time that firefighters
first arrived at the time that the incident was fully closed,
it did take seven hours. And that is well beyond
the typical you know couple of you know, one to
two hours or so that as you say, a conventional
car fire might take. And so it can really hamper,
(13:29):
especially a small department if they need to not only
bring in, uh, you know, a large water source from
somewhere else, but they need to have a number of
firefighters and the first responders on hand to in order
to uh fully you know, put out this fire. Electric
cars still are in the minority across the country, but
every day we're getting people are buying more and more
(13:49):
of those. I think one of the estimates says that
one in ten cars are expected to be electric by
so pretty soon. With all that stuff, so, you know,
more electric cars on the horizon. But the training hasn't
caught up with firefighters yet. And you know, companies like Tesla,
they put out guides on how to handle some of
these things. Unfortunately they're not much help. I think it
(14:11):
just says use copious amounts of water or something like that,
so it doesn't specify exactly how much or really how
to get to it quickly. Yeah, I mean, Tesla is
the currently the largest vendor of and manufacturer of electric
cars in the United States, as you say, but yes,
you're right, these figures are getting are are rising all
the time. You know, at least where I live here
(14:32):
in northern California, you see Tesla's and other electric vehicles,
you know, with increasing frequency. You have you know, President
Biden just testro of the Ford, uh, you know F
one fifty Lightning the electric truck. And you have other
companies that are coming out with new models all the time.
So this is something that is kind of looming in
our in our near future. And yet, as you say,
(14:53):
this is something that that firefighters are not fully adequately
trained on. There are, of course guides that are put
out Tesla and the other car manufacturers, but yes, they
don't always offer the degree of specificity that many fire
agencies would like, and many fire agencies have just not
had adequate training. You know. I spoke to some other
fire agencies that said that, you know, they were sort
(15:13):
of generally aware of what to do, but that there
hasn't been enough training by the various agencies that that
that they would need. So this is certainly something that
you know, the fire community is concerned about. In Europe,
they take an interesting approach. They try to get the
electric vehicle into some type of shipping container to dumpster
filled with water, basically dunk it if they can. But
(15:37):
TESLA says that they don't really recommend this. So the
simple question is how do you do it? What is
the most effective way to put them out without barring
using over twenty gallons of water? The optimal way, you know,
The thing that Tesla says, and that I think firefighters
would agree on, is to try to cool the battery
down to try to prevent or mitigate this so called
(15:57):
thermal runaway where the battery is sort of heating up
and reigniting. And so if there's a way to get
underneath the car to maybe jack it up or gain
access to it, pour water underneath it so that they
can cool it down and eventually put the fire out.
That is one way. There's another, you know, and this
is in the nt NTSP report, to have car manufacturers
(16:18):
start to think about having a standardized way to put
out these fires, to maybe have some sort of standardized
across all manufacturers kind of emergency access port where firefighters
could simply dumb water directly into the battery rather than
having to go kind of hunt for the opening and
try to figure out how much water and where to
put it. But yeah, in Europe they've taken a different approach,
(16:39):
and in the Netherlands specifically, I think this may partially
have to do with the fact that a lot of
fire agencies there, from what I understand, have replaced their
ladder trucks, those big, you know, fire trucks that we
see a lot of American cities. In many Dutch cities,
they've replaced those with cranes, and that partially that has
to do with with how Dutch cities are kind of
designed and built and organized, and also the fact that
(17:02):
Dutch a lot of Dutch buildings are very skeny and
so it's hard to do kind of a big kind
of American style ladder truck in those places. So a
lot of a lot of American fire agencies, while they
do have the capacity to reach great heights with the
ladder trucks, those are not generally equipped to, as you say,
put a dumpster or shipping container or some other large
piece of equipment and then fill it with water and
(17:23):
bring it to the site. Agencies are not generally equipped
to do that. So what they are equipped to do
is tap into, you know, the water reserves that they
carry on their rigs, on their on their engines and trucks.
And of course happened to the network of fire hydrants
that exist in you know, I think, most decently large
American cities. But you know, one of the things that
Chief Buck talked to me about and mentioned was, you
(17:45):
know what if this accident had happened on a freeway
right where there isn't a readily available source of water,
then what are you gonna do? And so these are
the kinds of things that that firefighters are now having
to grapple with. So have we seen any action on
expanding this training and is there are any set training?
From reading an article, I guess a lot of these
fire agencies kind of just coordinate with each other and
(18:06):
share best practices, but have there been any attempt to
at least set what should be done and expanded training
across the country. Yeah, I'm not aware of a formal
kind of national standard. I mean, you know, our fire agencies,
like many other government agencies, are kind of federalized, which
means that they're controlled from the from the local, county
and state level. There is no national fire authority that
(18:28):
can set you know, fire policy on a nationwide basis,
all in one go. So the agency known as the
n f p A the National Fire Protection Association, which
is a lobbying of research arm for the fire insurance
and fire fighting community, have conducted trainings with a lot
of fire agencies around the country. So far, they have
trained a quarter million firefighters and emergency responders over the
(18:51):
last twelve years. However, that leaves the overwhelming majority roughly
of the more than one point one million firefighters nationwide
that have not had a you know, not been trained yet.
It's important to remember also that two thirds of American
firefighters are volunteers. They work for small towns, they have
other jobs, they do other things, and they're kind of
volunteer firefighters in their community, so they may be kind
(19:14):
of harder to reach and harder to you know, take
the time to make sure that they have the adequate
education for how to respond to an instrument like this.
Cyrus r. Var, investigative tech reporter at NBC News, Thank
you very much for joining us. Thank you. That's it
(19:36):
for today. Join us on social media at Daily Dive
Pod on both Twitter and Instagram. Gave us a comment,
give us a rating, and tell us the stories that
you're interesting. Follow us and I heart radio or subscribe
where ever you get your podcast. This episode of The
Daily Divers produced by Victor Right and engineered by Tony Sarrentina.
I'm Moscarmeres and this is your Daily Dive. Br do
(20:01):
back
It's Friday, June. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles, and
this is the Daily Dive speaking out publicly for the
first time about the Conservative ship that has controlled her
life for thirteen years. Britney Spears pleaded with the judge
to end it and detailed how over the years she's
(00:20):
been forced to work against her will, be drugged and
prevented from removing a birth control device so she could
have more kids. Spears mentioned that she just wanted to
be heard and the conservatorship to be ended without another
psychological evaluation. Lisa rich Wine, entertainment reporter at Reuter's, was
on the scene in the courtroom and details what she
(00:41):
heard and why it still may be a long road
to free Brittany next. Federal regulators are warning firefighters about
the risks of putting out electrical vehicle fires. One of
the big issues is the lithium ion batteries that power
the cars. When the cars catch fire, the stored energy
and those batteries often heat up and continue need to reignite.
(01:01):
In one case, it took seven hours and twenty eight
thousand gallons of water to put out the electric car
fire completely. Regulators are calling for more firefighter training on
how to put them out. Cyrus Farvar, investigative tech reporter
at NBC News, joins us for more It's news without
the noise. Let's dive in. I wish I could stay
(01:23):
with you on the phone forever, because when I get
off the phone with you, all of a sudden, all
of our hear I hear all these nos, no, no, no,
and then all of a sudden, I get I feel
ganged up on, and I feel bullied, and I feel
left out and alone. Joining us now is Lisa rich Wine,
entertainment reporter at Reuter's. Thanks for joining us, Lisa, thanks
(01:44):
for having me. I wanted to talk about the testimony
that we heard from Britney Spears on Wednesday. Man, very
compelling stuff, something that she hadn't really done, able to
get her message out publicly, and we heard a lot
of Lisa were in the courtroom, so we were able
to get a different perspective there. Hear her voice obviously,
(02:05):
see the fans and supporters that she said had outside
of the courtroom. I mean, there's so much to unpack here,
but you know, she told the judge and the court
she said she's been drugged compelled to work against her will,
She's been prevented from removing a birth control device. She
says she wants to have more kids and get married
and all this stuff, and I mean just really some
(02:25):
compelling stuff that we were able to hear from her. So, Lisa,
if you can help start us off. What did we
hear from her? Well, it really felt like she was
just unloading to the court. I mean, she had not
spoken publicly and make clear she wanted everything to be public.
One of the lawyers suggested that the proceedings be closed
(02:46):
to the public and the media, and she said, no,
I want this to be public. I want everybody to
hear this. And she just spoke very quickly for more
than twenty minutes, just on and on and on that
this happened to me, and this and this, and then
I've been lying with what I've been, you know, showing
the world that you know, on Instagram, she's been saying, oh,
I'm happy, everything is great, and really this is what
(03:08):
I've been going through. And she spoke so fast that
twice the judge asked her to slow down because the
court reporter couldn't keep up with her reading. Reading through
her testimony, I mean she sounded exasperated at times, like
she couldn't get it out fast enough, you know, And
she made mention multiple times that you know, she talked
to them before and she didn't feel like she was
(03:29):
heard and this was that opportunity to get it all out. Yeah,
and she, I mean she really did. She She threw
in a lot of details of a lot of different
incidents and you know, at the end said to the judge,
I wish I could just keep talking to you. You know,
I have so much to say. And you know, clear
clearly made her case heard, and you know her side
(03:52):
of the story. Yeah, she's pleading for the judge to
end her conservatorship that's run by her father. It's kind
of a two pronged thing. It's you know, her her
person and the estate. So and they really control her
entire life. There. Let's talk a little bit more about
the testimony. There was a lot of focus on medications
that she's been given, things that she feels obviously she
(04:12):
doesn't need to take therapies. She said she you know,
in training, in rehearsing for some of her shows, you know,
she's kind of said, I didn't want to do these
dance moves or certain things, and then they put her
on things like lithium and really just messed with her
head in that sense. Yes, um, that that is what
she told the court and how she feels. She clearly
(04:33):
feels like these things were forced on her and that
she didn't have a choice. She was afraid, she was
afraid of how her father would react, you know, and
afraid legally that documents were put in front of her,
that they were scary and she would just sign them
because she didn't know what else to do. And actually
told the judge yesterday that she didn't know previously that
(04:53):
she could petition to have the conservatorship ended, and that
that that now that she knows that that is clearly
what she wants. Just going through her testimony, she said,
I'm scared of people. I don't trust people after what
I've been through. So she's in this really precarious position.
Tell us a little bit more about this conservatorship and
she's been on it, I guess for thirteen years now.
Tell us a little bit more about how that works. Sure, Well,
(05:16):
it started back in two thousand and eight, and you know,
there was a very public troubling time that she had
where she shaved her head and damaged the paparazzi's car
and her finances. Her finances were not doing great and
that was when her father stepped in and the conservatorship
was put in place. And early in that time she
(05:37):
she said that it was a help to her and
that she got her life back together, and she did.
She released another album, she went on tour. She toured
for ten years and played a very successful residency in Vegas.
The idea behind the conservatorship is that, you know, you're
particular protecting the person. Somebody who cares about the person
is protecting them from mismanaging their finances or their health care,
(05:58):
that they just can't make proper decisions, or their subject
to undue influence from outside people. And you know, certainly
if you're a famous person with a lot of money,
that would always be a concern um And you know,
again Britney said at the beginning that that was helpful.
But you know, now she says, I'm I'm I've worked,
I've earned millions of dollars. You know, clearly I'm a
(06:18):
functioning adult and that you know, this just seems ridiculous
to her at this point that she needs this kind
of oversight. Yeah. She came back to that multiple times,
you know, and it's been true for her whole life. Really,
I'm the money maker. I'm doing all this stuff, putting
roofs over people's heads and all that. This isn't working
in the present way, and conservatorships a lot of times
are meant for people with serious disability dementia who really
(06:41):
can't take care of themselves. So you know, she's making
that push saying I'm an adult, I've changed. Let's end this.
There was a statement I guess that was read by
not by her father, but it was from her father.
What did he have to say about all of this? Yeah, yeah,
I mean after she spoke and I think everybody was
really done by it, the attorney representing her father asked
(07:03):
the judge to recess for a few minutes, and after
about twenty minutes, she came back and read a statement
from Jamie Spirits, her father, that basically said that he
was sorry to hear that she's struggling in pain, and
that he loves his daughter very much and this is
her So so that's, you know, all we have heard
from that side at this point. So the next steps Obviously,
(07:24):
this is a very complicated situation. You know, she's pleading
for herself. Obviously, I want out of this. It's not
so simple. You know. One of the themes she kept
going back to as well throughout her testimony is that
I want the Conservative ship to end, but I don't
want to be evaluated psychologically. Again. You know, she she
has a trauma from going through it, so that's one
of the things she kept pleading for. But that's that
(07:46):
might be a problem, you know, to get out of this.
I mean it might it might seem logical that she
has to go through some of these tests just to
prove that right, And yeah, it will be it will
probably be a lengthy process from here. I mean, the
next step will be that she should have she should
follow a petition with the court if she wants to,
(08:07):
and the conservatorship, and it'll be up to the judge
as to how that proceeds. And in California, the burden
is on the person, the Conservatives, the person who is
under the conservatorship, to to prove that they don't need
protection anymore, because you know, the worst thing from the
dosa's point of view would be that, oh, I remove
it and then something horrible happens and you know, you
(08:28):
know she and you realize that she did need the protection. Normally,
what happens is the court will start by sending an
independent investigator to talk with her and uh, you know again,
I'll all size will weigh in, the gaming spirits of
the father and probably her mother will will give you know,
their perspectives on all this. Um. So there'll be a
lot for the judge to take into consideration. What the
(08:50):
family wants, what the independent investigator wants, UM her one
of her co conservators. Now everybody will get to weigh in,
and it'll it'll be a lengthy process. As I mentioned,
you were there in the so you were able to
see everything inside and out. I know she had a
bunch of supporters outside. What was that seemed like she
did a bunch of fans dress up in pink and
(09:10):
some of them had pigtails, and they carry these signs
that say, you know, how stag free Brittany. And you know,
it kind of started out is something that everybody thought
was a little silly. And you know, there was a
documentary that came out this year that shed some light
on her situation, and really I mean, the fans definitely
feel vindicated that their suspicions were right, that that Brittany
(09:32):
was not happy and feels like she was being you know,
controlled too much at this point. But yeah, they were,
you know, it was it was probably about a hundred fans,
I would say, and you know they were they were
thrilled that that she finally got to, you know, speak
with her story and you know, put it, put it
(09:52):
out into the public. Lisa rich Wine, entertainment reporter at Reuter's,
thank you very much for joining us. Thank at this
particular into it took twenty eight thousand gallons of water
to fully put out this fire. By comparison, that is
(10:16):
something like the amount of waters that are American an
average American household uses in two years. Joining us now
is Sirous Farvar, investigative tech reporter at NBC News. Thanks
for joining us, rus my pleasure. You're an interesting story
about fires and electric vehicles. Federal regulators have been warning
that firefighters haven't been trained properly or enough really across
(10:40):
the country to battle some of these things. When these
electric cars go up, some of these fire departments say
that it's kind of like a trick birthday candle. You'll
be able to put it out and then maybe minutes later,
half hour later, it reignites. And it all has to
do with these lithium ion batteries that power these electric cars,
and there's really no space scific way to get around it.
(11:01):
You just have to pour tons of water on it.
Over twenty gallons of water in a few of the
cases that you outline in your story. So Cirrus, tell
us a little bit about what we're seeing with this. Yeah,
that's exactly right. I spoke with Chief Paulard Buck from
the Woodlands, Texas with the Suburb of Houston Fire Department,
and they recently had to deal with a Tesla fire
(11:21):
where first responders arrived at a scene where the bodies
of two men were found later found to be deceased
in the back of a crashed Tesla that had crashed
off of a road and hit a tree and was
on fire. And when that agency responded to that incident,
they found, as you say, yes, that the car did
re ignite. Tesla's as do most electric vehicles, have massive
(11:44):
battery packs below the chassis of the car, basically underneath
the floorboards or what would normally do the floorboards. And yes,
because of the way that lithium ion batteries were. When
they rupture, they can re ignite and they can catch fire,
and especially if they're near something else that can come blast,
so that can catch on fire like a tree or
a house or something else that can cause a lot
(12:06):
of problems for firefighters. So yes, in this particular incident,
it took twenty eight thousand gallons of water to fully
put out this fire. By comparison, that is something like
the amount of waters that are American an average American
household uses in two years. And to further that comparison,
you know a typical car, regular combustion engine that could
(12:26):
be put out fairly quickly with about three hundred gallons
of water, and you know you mentioned twenty thousand gallons,
it took those firefighters seven hours to put it out completely.
So what the other effect of that is is that
you need firefighters kind of on standby to make sure
everything goes out, and the hours spent putting these things out,
(12:46):
maybe they're not prepared for it. Maybe they need to
put these firefighters in a different location to help somewhere else.
So this is the other consequence they can't leave. They
have to keep monitoring these things. Yeah, that's right cheap.
In this town, Woodlands, Texas at like to quote unquote babysitting,
and you know, for their department and their relatively small department,
they have eight companies. They had two of those companies
(13:08):
that had to quote unquote baby said this fire for
for many hours. And yes, from the time that firefighters
first arrived at the time that the incident was fully closed,
it did take seven hours. And that is well beyond
the typical you know couple of you know, one to
two hours or so that as you say, a conventional
car fire might take. And so it can really hamper,
(13:29):
especially a small department if they need to not only
bring in, uh, you know, a large water source from
somewhere else, but they need to have a number of
firefighters and the first responders on hand to in order
to uh fully you know, put out this fire. Electric
cars still are in the minority across the country, but
every day we're getting people are buying more and more
(13:49):
of those. I think one of the estimates says that
one in ten cars are expected to be electric by
so pretty soon. With all that stuff, so, you know,
more electric cars on the horizon. But the training hasn't
caught up with firefighters yet. And you know, companies like Tesla,
they put out guides on how to handle some of
these things. Unfortunately they're not much help. I think it
(14:11):
just says use copious amounts of water or something like that,
so it doesn't specify exactly how much or really how
to get to it quickly. Yeah, I mean, Tesla is
the currently the largest vendor of and manufacturer of electric
cars in the United States, as you say, but yes,
you're right, these figures are getting are are rising all
the time. You know, at least where I live here
(14:32):
in northern California, you see Tesla's and other electric vehicles,
you know, with increasing frequency. You have you know, President
Biden just testro of the Ford, uh, you know F
one fifty Lightning the electric truck. And you have other
companies that are coming out with new models all the time.
So this is something that is kind of looming in
our in our near future. And yet, as you say,
(14:53):
this is something that that firefighters are not fully adequately
trained on. There are, of course guides that are put
out Tesla and the other car manufacturers, but yes, they
don't always offer the degree of specificity that many fire
agencies would like, and many fire agencies have just not
had adequate training. You know. I spoke to some other
fire agencies that said that, you know, they were sort
(15:13):
of generally aware of what to do, but that there
hasn't been enough training by the various agencies that that
that they would need. So this is certainly something that
you know, the fire community is concerned about. In Europe,
they take an interesting approach. They try to get the
electric vehicle into some type of shipping container to dumpster
filled with water, basically dunk it if they can. But
(15:37):
TESLA says that they don't really recommend this. So the
simple question is how do you do it? What is
the most effective way to put them out without barring
using over twenty gallons of water? The optimal way, you know,
The thing that Tesla says, and that I think firefighters
would agree on, is to try to cool the battery
down to try to prevent or mitigate this so called
(15:57):
thermal runaway where the battery is sort of heating up
and reigniting. And so if there's a way to get
underneath the car to maybe jack it up or gain
access to it, pour water underneath it so that they
can cool it down and eventually put the fire out.
That is one way. There's another, you know, and this
is in the nt NTSP report, to have car manufacturers
(16:18):
start to think about having a standardized way to put
out these fires, to maybe have some sort of standardized
across all manufacturers kind of emergency access port where firefighters
could simply dumb water directly into the battery rather than
having to go kind of hunt for the opening and
try to figure out how much water and where to
put it. But yeah, in Europe they've taken a different approach,
(16:39):
and in the Netherlands specifically, I think this may partially
have to do with the fact that a lot of
fire agencies there, from what I understand, have replaced their
ladder trucks, those big, you know, fire trucks that we
see a lot of American cities. In many Dutch cities,
they've replaced those with cranes, and that partially that has
to do with with how Dutch cities are kind of
designed and built and organized, and also the fact that
(17:02):
Dutch a lot of Dutch buildings are very skeny and
so it's hard to do kind of a big kind
of American style ladder truck in those places. So a
lot of a lot of American fire agencies, while they
do have the capacity to reach great heights with the
ladder trucks, those are not generally equipped to, as you say,
put a dumpster or shipping container or some other large
piece of equipment and then fill it with water and
(17:23):
bring it to the site. Agencies are not generally equipped
to do that. So what they are equipped to do
is tap into, you know, the water reserves that they
carry on their rigs, on their on their engines and trucks.
And of course happened to the network of fire hydrants
that exist in you know, I think, most decently large
American cities. But you know, one of the things that
Chief Buck talked to me about and mentioned was, you
(17:45):
know what if this accident had happened on a freeway
right where there isn't a readily available source of water,
then what are you gonna do? And so these are
the kinds of things that that firefighters are now having
to grapple with. So have we seen any action on
expanding this training and is there are any set training?
From reading an article, I guess a lot of these
fire agencies kind of just coordinate with each other and
(18:06):
share best practices, but have there been any attempt to
at least set what should be done and expanded training
across the country. Yeah, I'm not aware of a formal
kind of national standard. I mean, you know, our fire agencies,
like many other government agencies, are kind of federalized, which
means that they're controlled from the from the local, county
and state level. There is no national fire authority that
(18:28):
can set you know, fire policy on a nationwide basis,
all in one go. So the agency known as the
n f p A the National Fire Protection Association, which
is a lobbying of research arm for the fire insurance
and fire fighting community, have conducted trainings with a lot
of fire agencies around the country. So far, they have
trained a quarter million firefighters and emergency responders over the
(18:51):
last twelve years. However, that leaves the overwhelming majority roughly
of the more than one point one million firefighters nationwide
that have not had a you know, not been trained yet.
It's important to remember also that two thirds of American
firefighters are volunteers. They work for small towns, they have
other jobs, they do other things, and they're kind of
volunteer firefighters in their community, so they may be kind
(19:14):
of harder to reach and harder to you know, take
the time to make sure that they have the adequate
education for how to respond to an instrument like this.
Cyrus r. Var, investigative tech reporter at NBC News, Thank
you very much for joining us. Thank you. That's it
(19:36):
for today. Join us on social media at Daily Dive
Pod on both Twitter and Instagram. Gave us a comment,
give us a rating, and tell us the stories that
you're interesting. Follow us and I heart radio or subscribe
where ever you get your podcast. This episode of The
Daily Divers produced by Victor Right and engineered by Tony Sarrentina.
I'm Moscarmeres and this is your Daily Dive. Br do
(20:01):
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