Midas sails under a Liberian flag and is a car and truck carrier. It left Yantai, China, on May 26, according to the industry site marinetraffic.com., and was headed to a major Pacific port in Mexico.

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.

Midas caught fire Tuesday roughly 300 miles from Adak, Alaska. The ship was carrying thousands of vehicles when it erupted.