The crew of a cargo ship carrying around 3,000 vehicles, including 800 electric vehicles, abandoned it off the coast of Alaska after a fire broke out onboard, its operator Zodiac Maritime said on Wednesday.

The U.S. Coast Guard said it would allow the fire to burn because the cars’ lithium-ion batteries could explode. The ship’s crew escaped on a lifeboat.

Six hundred eighty-one partial hybrid electric vehicles and 70 fully electric automobiles went into the water after a cargo vessel sank 300 miles south of this town and no one was injured on Wednesday,