The Importance of Education Around EV Fire Safety

The Importance of Education Around EV Fire Safety

Electric vehicle, or EV fire safety, is growing in importance as more models fill the market
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    In August 2024, a fully electric Tesla Semi caught fire in California. While the news may have passed us by here in the UK, given the increasing sales of electric vehicles on this side of the Atlantic, we should all be aware of it.

    Why? Quite simply, the electric vehicle and Lithium-ion battery markets are still so new that studies and experience are in short supply. There just hasn’t been the amount of exposure to these incidents as, for example, petrol vehicle fires and this means owners are not aware of or don’t fully understand the risks.

    This all comes down to education.

    Around 100,000 car fires occur in the UK each year and, as demand for electric vehicles continues to grow, so does the need for education about the risks of ownership in the same way that we were taught about the risks of ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicle ownership.

    According to Autocar, only 239 electric vehicle fires were reported out of the 100,000 car fires recorded between 2022 and 2023. While this is a relatively small number, and the overall vehicle fire numbers are decreasing year-on-year, concern is growing about electric and hybrid vehicle fires. This is, firstly, because the technology is new and unpredictable; secondly, because they are much more difficult to extinguish than ICE vehicle fires.

    Senior Technical Consultant at Firechief® Global, Matt Humby, said “The huge transition shift from ICE vehicles to EVs has been one of the biggest and costliest periods for the Automotive Industry.

    “Whilst this was required in terms of Net Zero, and as a result of targets set by the UK government to reduce emissions, it has come with huge financial investment and also from an education standpoint, particularly from the Fire Service whom in rare cases are having to tackle battery modules in Electric vehicles going into thermal runaway. This fire risk is unlike any other vehicle fire risk and will require much more research, not only in terms of safety but also in how to deal with these fires.”

    What happened in the Tesla incident in California?

    It was just after 3 am in California at the height of summer.

    A Tesla Semi, which is a fully electric truck designed and developed by the tech giant owned by Elon Musk, was being driven along the second-longest Interstate Highway in the US by a Tesla employee to one of the brand’s test facilities in Nevada when it left the road and hit a tree.

    It then went down a sloped bank and came to rest against several trees at the bottom of the bank and the driver was not injured.

    Shortly after the crash, the Lithium-ion battery pack which powered the Tesla Semi ignited and went into thermal runaway.

    Californian firefighters said that the fire reached a height of around 540° Celsius, and they used an incredible 50,000 gallons (190,000 litres or more than 334,000 pints depending on your preferred measurements) to extinguish the flames and called upon an aircraft to drop fire retardant on the immediate area as a precautionary measure.

    To put that into context, Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service responded to an ICE vehicle fire in Lichfield in 2023 by using 2,000 litres.

    The 4,600km motorway in California was closed for around 15 HOURS as firefighters ensured the batteries were cool enough to recover, and that they were not going to reignite during or after recovery. Again, to put this into some context here in the UK, a three-lane motorway closure lasting up to four hours costs almost £1.5 million according to Highways England.

    What is thermal runaway?

    We touched on it just now, but the main issue surrounding the Tesla fire in California was the fact that the Lithium-ion battery powering the vehicle went into thermal runaway and created additional problems for the emergency services.

    Lithium-ion battery fires create great risks for the recycling sector

    Thermal runaway is a rapid chemical reaction triggered by the penetration or damage to the battery cells. Put simply, it is an uncontrollable, overheating of the Lithium-ion battery which causes a fire and generates harmful gases.

    It can happen in milliseconds as the temperatures rise and once it starts thermal runaway can be nearly impossible to extinguish.

    How do you extinguish thermal runaway?

    Traditional ICE firefighting techniques such as water are less effective at bringing the temperature down because the battery keeps releasing more energy, maintaining the temperature of the fire.

    The only ways to deal with it are:

    EV car fire blankets are designed to suppress fires until emergency services arrive
    The multi-use car fire blanket from Firechief® Global

    However, as Matt Humby says, it is not so much the initial fire but “the re-ignition of the battery cells within the module is the biggest concern.

    “Containment can be very useful; hence we are seeing the use of vehicle fire blankets along with medium to slow that process down, control and dominate the fire. We are on a learning process which will take time, but learning from every EV fire is key.” 

    What have we learned about EV fire safety from this and similar incidents?

    Fire and emergency services are continuously learning about electric vehicle fires, and Lithium-ion battery fire safety as a whole. With each new emergency they are called out to, they face new challenges and implement new strategies or equipment tasked with helping them deal with the fire in the most efficient and effective way possible.

    The American National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said after the incident that it would “look into” the fire risks posed by the particular Lithium-ion battery used in the Tesla Semi and that all aspects of the crash were under investigation. Back in 2021 the NTSB had stated that electric vehicle battery fires pose risks to first responders and that new guidelines were required from the manufacturers as to how to deal with them as those available at the time were “inadequate.”

    The NTSB (who have no enforcement powers it’s important to add) called for specific guides to help fight Lithium-ion battery fires and limit the risk of thermal runaway and reignition. They also called for guidelines for storing vehicles with damaged batteries while recoveries and investigations were underway.

    We have a similar situation here in the UK where there is no enforcement, but evidence-based fire safety considerations are in place including a guide for alternatively fuelled vehicles (AFVs) compiled by the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC).

    To learn more about how to fight electric vehicle fires, Essex Fire and Rescue Service have made 2025 the year where they will increase their focus on learning how to deal with EV fires.

    In a recent article published by the BBC, Station Manager Terry Maher, an expert in hazardous materials, said that their preferred approach at the moment is “to let them burn themselves out” but “as more and more people use electric vehicles we can expect more and more electric vehicle fires” and that the team in Essex has started recording all lithium-ion battery fires by type so that it can better understand the issues they pose and plan for the future.

    What happens now?

    The number of electric vehicles on the roads in the UK only ticked over the 1 million mark earlier this year. This means that there is a very small sample size of “older” electric vehicles available for researchers to assess whether ageing cars and batteries increase the likelihood of a fire.

    While all the unpredictability and unknowns might make people believe EVs and lithium-ion batteries are unsafe; a senior advisor to the NFCC told Autocar “We don’t need to be worried about the small incidence of fires involving EVs, but we do need to be aware.

    “A lithium-ion battery stores a huge amount of emergency in a small space. The adoption of such batteries has outstripped our appreciation of their risks and we’re running to catch up, but we will do.”

    That last line is important. We’re catching up, but we will get there. That is one reason why we took the proactive approach to forming the Firechief® Global Academy.

    We wanted to educate as many people as possible about the risks of Lithium-ion battery fires and to pass our knowledge on to those who need it either now, or in the future. All of our content is delivered through webinars, on-demand videos and face-to-face training to CPD-accredited standards by experienced, knowledgeable fire industry professionals.

    An introductory course looking at the risks of Lithium-ion battery fires
    The CPD-accredited course from the Firechief® Academy is available now

    At the moment we offer courses including an introduction to the issues surrounding Lithium battery fires such as those involved in the Tesla Semi fire, followed by a more advanced course which includes plans to mitigate and manage the risks.

    If you would like to join us on any of our CPD courses, simply complete the form on the Firechief® Academy page or contact us for more information.


    Disclaimer

    The information contained within this blog is provided solely for general informational and educational purposes and is not intended as a substitute for professional advice. Before taking any actions based upon this information, we advise the reader to consult all relevant statutory or regulatory guidance and where felt necessary to consult a qualified fire or industry regulation professional. The use or reliance on any information contained herein is solely at the reader's risk.