Electric vehicles can catch fire when they are over-charged or damaged during a crash, but the risk is much lower than for their petrol or diesel counterparts.
Tesla claims one vehicle fire for every 205 million miles travelled in its cars, which is ten times less than the overall average. Even during a round of crash testing which was far in excess of regulatory requirements, German agency DEKRA reported none of the vehicles caught fire or posed an electrocution risk to first responders. If they do catch fire, vehicles are typically soaked in (or submerged in) large quantities of water to cool the battery.