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No, EV fires are more rare than fires in gas cars or in hybrid vehicles. They just get more media attention since the technology is newer and they can be hard to put out without proper training.
Data from the National Transportation Safety Board and Bureau of Transportation Statistics shows that while gas cars saw fires in 1,530 out of 100,000 cars, battery electric vehicles had the fewest: 25 per 100,000. Hybrids have the most fires, at 3,475 per 100,000.
New data from around the world backs up the NTSB findings. Data coming out of Australia shows that the risk of an EV fire is 0.0013%. shared by our friends at EV Universe. A recent Wired piece cites "An analysis of that data by one insurance company suggested that more than 1,500 gas cars catch on fire per 100,000 sales, compared to just 25 electric vehicles."
Finally, there is concern about EV fires after electric cars have been submerged in salt water. Idaho National Labs published a report showing that these fires are also rare, "The 2022 Hurricane Ian impacted between 3000-5000 EVs to various degrees, ~36 EVs caught on fire."
Part of the reason that EV fires get so much attention is because they are harder to put out for untrained response teams.
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