One of the world's largest battery storage facilities is being consumed by flames near San Francisco on Friday, and officials say the best solution is to let the factory continue to burn, even as it releases toxic fumes into the air.

The 300 MW first phase of Vistra Energy's Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility in California caught fire Thursday afternoon.

The dramatic fire at the the Vistra battery storage plant, one of the world’s largest, caused the evacuation of 1,200 people in Northern Monterey County, closed Highway 1 and sent large clouds of toxic black smoke billowing from at one of the world’s largest battery storage plants.

A fire at a one of the world’s largest battery plants in California contained tens of thousands of lithium batteries that store power from renewable energy sources

Our citizens are very alarmed,” one Morro Bay resident said, after the fire along Monterey Bay forced 1,200 people to evacuate.

People living near a power plant in Central California were ordered to evacuate their homes Thursday night after a fire broke out at the facility, officials said.

A fire at the world’s largest battery storage plant in Northern California smoldered Friday after sending plumes of toxic smoke into the atmosphere, leading to the evacuation of up to 1,500 people.

Evacuations were lifted Friday night for people near an ongoing fire that erupted Thursday at one of the world’s largest battery storage plants in the northern half of California. Video circulating on social media showed smoke and flames erupting from the Moss Landing Power Plant on Thursday night in the Monterey County community of Moss Landing,

A fire at a major battery-storage plant in Northern California prompted the evacuation of hundreds of nearby residents and the closure of schools and parts of Highway 1 nearby. Residents of the area around the Moss Landing Power Plant in Monterey County were evacuated late Thursday after the fire broke out.