Representatives of the Huntsville/Lake of Bays Fire Department have been making the rounds explaining to both the Lake of Bays and Huntsville councils the challenge they’re facing with Lithium-ion batteries if they become unstable.
According to a report presented to Huntsville Council at its General Committee meeting on May 24 by Deputy Fire Chief Paul Calleja, when the battery becomes unstable it is referred to as a ‘thermal run a way.’ “This is an internal short circuit and is a violent chemical reaction that takes place causing the battery cell to rupture.” When that happens, it can involve extremely high temperatures, gas, particulates, and/or shrapnel as well as smoke and fire.
Calleja explained that it takes an enormous amount of water to put out an electric vehicle fire.
“To help put into context, consider the following:
• A vehicle fire with a fuel driven engine requires approximately 2,000L (500G) – 4,000L (1,000G) of water and takes on average 1 ½ hours to extinguish.
• A vehicle fire involving an Electric Vehicle (EV) where the batteries experience Thermal Run a Way will require approximately 12,000L (3,000G) – 16,000L (4,000G) of water and can take up to 4 hours to extinguish.”
According to Calleja’s report: “A realistic consideration is to let the cell burn itself out and not apply water directly to it. Fire control measures can still take place with existing materials in the proximity of the battery cells to help prevent fire spread.”
Huntsville/Lake of Bays Fire Chief Gary Monahan said the department will be rolling out an educational campaign to explain the issue.
“In the event that we get a fire of an electric vehicle on the highway and the fire department is not putting water on it. Social media… might kind of rake us through the coals because we’re not fighting that fire,” he said. “So the idea was, ‘there’s reasons why we’re not doing this and we can explain why we’re not fighting that fire. If it happened, we’re not going to risk running people up and down the highway with tankers on something like that. We’re just going to let it burn. It’s a car,” noted Monahan.
According to Calleja’s report, in the past six months fire response services have experienced four incidents as a result of a lithium battery or an incident where one was involved. He noted education involving safety is important.
You can read Calleja’s report HERE.
Don’t miss out on Doppler!
Sign up here to receive our email digest with links to our most recent stories.
Local news in your inbox so you don’t miss anything!
Click here to support local news
I hope that the fire department will stand by in case of reignition as ev’s have reignited after the fire was out. Costs for overtime will naturally apply.
Existing EV battery chemistries like LFP and upcoming sodium ion and solid state don’t burn.
LFP is used in base Teslas, Ford Mach Es and upcoming Lightnings. Also used in most Chinese EVs.
EV fires like that will soon be history.
But gasoline will still burn.
Gasoline cars on fire at the side of the road are very common and not a news story.
Gasoline cars are recalled all the time due to fire risk. Even when parked.
Just one example “Over 651,000 Hyundai Tucson SUVs and Kia Stinger sedans should be parked outside until they are repaired”
I wonder, do these battery fires tend to take place when the car is “in use” or just spontaneously, like when parked?
I think most gas powered cars tend to have fires when in actual use, but I’ve seen some that just started when parked. Always these latter types involved the electrical system.
It makes it an issue, do you use an attached garage or carport or a remote garage that stands some distance from the house.
If these fires are that hard to extinguish, do we really want these cars “snuggled” up adjacent to vastly more expensive buildings or should they be ostracized to the farther reaches of parking lots and banned from inside parking altogether? A good question for our municipal and fire departments to mull over.
Electric Vehicle battery fires are indeed difficult to deal with. But to avoid any misunderstanding, according to the US National Transportation Safety Board, Electric Vehicles have by far the least risk of catching fire.
In 2020, EVs experienced 25.1 fires per 100,000 vehicles, compared to 1,529.9 for gasoline powered vehicles, and 3,474.5 for Hybrids. In other words, gasoline-powered vehicles are 60 times more likely to catch fire than Electric Vehicles. Hybrids are more complex with essentially two powertrains and are 138 times more likely to catch fire than Electric Vehicles.