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.

A cargo ship carrying more than 3,000 vehicles was still smoking Thursday, two days after a fire forced its 22 crew members to abandon ship off Alaska.