What Firefighting Tools for Extinguishing Electric Vehicle Fires Really Work?
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- Опубликовано: 7 июн 2023
- There are a lot of new tools showing up on the market that claim to extinguish electric vehicle fires. Do these tools really work? To solve the problem you have to have an understanding of how electric vehicles burn.
Submerging Electric Vehicle Fires? • Does Submerging Electr...
Part 1: What's Inside an Electric Vehicle - • Part 1: What's Inside ...
Part 2: What's Inside an Electric Vehicle - • Part 2: What's Inside ...
It's funny how the technologies that protect the fire from occurring in the 1st place (insulating batteries, separating them, mounting in strong containers) is actually hindering firefighting efforts.
I call it the boot vs sandal effect.
You can either work really hard to prevent anything from getting inside, or you can make it really easy for anything that gets inside to pour back out again.
Trying to do something inbetween defeats both purposes.
And battery boxes are using the boot side of things.
Similar to house construction; houses are easy to Pierce and get water on. A castle convert very difficult to extinguish a fire, due to accessibility.
You could have the battery fully exposed would not help much. Get yourself a few fully charged 18650 cells tape them together. Short one out or even better stab one with a screwdriver. Watch the resulting fire and see if you can put it out with water.
@@mitchellcrane9809 It will actually be possible to put out the fire quite quickly: I mean the cells that are already burning will need to burn out, but all the remaining ones would be safe. A fire would last like couple of seconds. One 18650 cell holds about 10 Wh of energy, that's a tiny fraction of the whole EV battery.
@@mibars No actually try it because I have experienced myself. I have friend who is a commercial electrician. He got the fabulous experience of watching a data center burn down because of the LiPo batteries in the backup power supplies went off and spread to other units. Now imagine trying to put that out in a tesla pack which is what the older packs are make of . The same principle applies to all of them. It is a extremely energetic fire that spreads quickly and there is no way to reliable put it out. This is a well known subject/issue why people actually try arguing that it is not the case is beyond me. The issue can not be addressed if people just keep telling themselves stupid ideas like just flood the pack with water or cool it with nitrogen or any or the other foolish ideas I read.
I have been part of a few research sessions here in Australia and there really isn’t any clear solutions. I think the main priority should be just containing the fire and reducing public exposure to toxic gases. I personally would like to see decals on the car they identify the cell chemistry.
A design requirement for a quench-port or force-cooling port could potentially aid in this case. A standardized hookup point allowing access to the normally hermetic environment for quenching a fire. A secondary blowout would probably also be needed to discharge water after passing through as much of the battery as possible.
a new battery chemistry might be one.
The main priority should be banning them. They would let the environmental, health and safety risk fly in any other product.
@@asherdieBan ICE vehicles, the affects of the internal combustion engine seems to cause Canada to catch fire and me to breathe smoke. Homey don’t play that!
@@1kreature I like it. I commented elsewhere - A double-win would be that fast charging ev's is already limited by thermals, not battery chemistry, since the car is designed with very limited battery cooling for day-to-day operation. If they could justify external access to battery cooling loops with an interface that doubled to allow chargers to heat/cool the battery for more efficient charging, it would keep everyone happy. Consumers get faster charging, it's not an expensive part to include in the car, and firefighters get sufficient cooling btu to prevent a complete loss with less gallons and less time.
Germany uses a small crane and a steel shipping container. The entire car is dunked into the container full of water for three days. All you can do is cool the exothermic reaction after runaway has occurred.
I have read even after that they still catch back on fire.
@@ldnwholesale8552 He said for three days--did you miss that part, or are you saying it will reignight after being in water for three days?
@@gcampagn I wonder if that would work. Actually getting it on the battery would be almost impossible. But I wonder if a battery would stop burning if it was frozen, or if it would continue to burn slowly. Or just keep burning like nothing happened.
@@SP30305ATL More like 3 WEEKS, and you'd better use saltwater so it hastens the corrosion of every cell. Of course now you have a giant container of hazardous waste you're stuck with...
@@SP30305ATLyes, they can reignite for weeks after catching fire. The procedure in Europe is 3 days in the dunk tank then pull it out. If it catches fire again 3 more days......
If anything, if EVs become common enough, it may be best to just have some sort of enclosed trailer with a winch inside that you can tow a burning EV into. That way it would be in an enclosed space that you can vent the gasses directionally while managing temperature.
This strikes me as a pretty good idea. Box would have to be rather robust, but probably doable.
@@itshofftime How many fires can a regular shipping container take without deforming enough to be unusable?
I like it! It could be hauled to an "EV burn yard" so that combustion can do what is does. A large particulate filter would be nice too.
@@CTimmerman Line it with gypsum panels. Replace them after each EV burn.
sure - are you gonna hook the cable to the car ?
"The best for electric vehicle is to let it burn"... I'm glad that we agree on that.
So the battery boxes need a flooding port accessible on the exterior of the vehicle. Or the boxes need an internal fire suppression system.
You could put where the exhaust would be on an ice car
@@jasonmurphy9647 that's actually a damn good idea, leverage a portion of the pre-existing ICE paradigm as a "hydrant" or "stand pipe connection". 🤙👏👌 this would better than the gas filler neck idea being considered, as that access point would unfortunately be sitting up high in the flame.
re: "Or the boxes need an internal fire suppression system." i've seen this done as well (have the pics on my phone) but the caveat is this was on a custom EV race car with a custom made battery pack (built with an almost unlimited budget) so it hasn't reached the price conscious OEM's just yet. what they did was simply leverage a pre-existing idea/requirement for on board Fire Suppression found on many ICE race cars, and dictated by many race tracks and sanctioned race series (ref: NHRA, SCCA, etc). further example: those in the Porsche community know that a fire bottle is something than can be specced on some models of 911 purely driven on the street.
A decade ago when I was telling people just let them burn and I’ll be over soon. People laugh at me like I was crazy..
This is what happens when people don’t have the slightest concept of physics and thermodynamics .
Are we managers or supervisors who are in charge are not confident at the job that was assigned to them making decisions .
If the vehicle is located, where those be no harm to property or people, just let it burn .
ie, almost everyone.
Flooding port on the battery box would def help. Needs to be standardized for the entire industry.
it does not help. The nature of these fires makes them unstoppable, all you can do is let them burn themselves out
@@mitchellcrane9809sure as heck looks like you can stop them: ruclips.net/video/4xjDdmv8urk/видео.html
@@mitchellcrane9809 this is not fuel, they are burning because they are allowed to reach these high temperatures.
@@mitchellcrane9809 you are not a expert.
@@drunk_astronomy really , based on what? Contradictions from experts dealing with battery fires? Doubt it. Or could it be you just do not want to listen to the truth ( or argumentative and childish). batteries may not burn often but when they do you are not putting them out. This is shown time and time again. Read reports, look at video evidence perhaps personally experience a battery fire (personally have had 3) . Want to see one up close get yourself a 18650 or a LiPo charge it fully and put a screwdriver through it or short it out - enjoy the fun up close, take a deep breath of the fumes too. Then you can be a expert also. We are surrounded in our daily lives with these batteries and is necessary. However they need to be shown respect and people need to understand them better, understand the hazards they can present .
Thanks, good discussion, it's really big issue. Surely manufacturers need to be part of the solution.
LION cells are like rocket fuel. They contain oxidizer. I agree with your recommendation to let it burn out. I was part of team that designed a LION pack for an EV. If they do go out, they can sometimes reignite hours or days later. If you have an EV parked in your garage, you should get a heat detector alarm and connect it to your home fire alarm system.
"If you have an EV..."??? All are dangerous, even Tesla? What is the % of Teslas that have exploded?
By the time a heat or smoke detector senses anything it'll be too late. You would need to attach a cable to your EV when it's parked inside so you have something to drag it out of the garage to burn in the driveway.
@@1voluntaryist Far fewer than similar petrol vehicles. I was once forced to remove a bail of hay from a rented garage because it was 'a fire risk'. I replaced it with a Lightweight ex military Landrover. That had two ten gallon petrol tanks, one under each of the front seats. It also had a 100 litre propane fuel tank in the back. These vehicles have a reputation of catching fire. The garage owner was scared of hay but happy with the Land Rover. I just found that funny.
EVs are generally safer than petrol alternatives.
@@mbak7801 Hay can spontaneously ignite if it's baled at too high moisture content, but a single bale isn't going to ignite unless it's a full round bale or large square bale. A normal square bale would dissipate the heat because there's not enough mass.
#NotAllRocketFuel contains an oxidiser like oxygen, peroxide, bleach, or fluoride, and if battery cells didn't keep reducer like carbon or lithium and oxidiser separate with porous cellophane, nylon, or polyolefin film, they'd be bombs.
Great video. Subscribed. Cheers ...
Have you ever wondered exactly what is a "carbon footprint"? The best example of a carbon footprint is the vehicle size black spot left on the ground after your E-car burns its tires off the wheels.
I've heard these referred to as "Road Pizzas" !
Sure, because gasoline cars and trucks never burn.
@@truantray pull your head out dude. Where did anyone say only ecars burst into flames? If a gasoline car burned down and left a pile of shit and a black spot, that would be the "carbon footprint" too. Its not my fault you bought one of these shitty cars. But if it makes you feel better.. Im sorry I made you cry.
Use those burnt batteries for the wall around the white house, recycling genius .
@@truantray they seem to burn less violently than ev's imo
I saw a specialty truck in Europe where a huge tank on the back of a truck where the ev was hoisted into the tank and completely submerged. This is the best approach ive seen. It minimizes Poineaus fumes and damage to roads.
Excellent topic & analysis!
I would say finding way to manage the flame until it goes out.
Maybe something like a fire blanket, with an exhaust port that leads to something that can neutralize the hazardous smoke.
Awesome video, thanks 🙌👍😊👌
Worthwhile to mention that the topic is about the traditional (or classic) LiCoNiMn type of battery chemistry. It has the positive temperature coefficient. In recent days, some EV models start to use LiFePO4 type batteries. Although it's energy density isn't as good as the classic, most commonly used Li with Cobalt, Nickel, Manganese batteries,
it's main advantage is its negative temperature coefficient. I.e., it's negative feedback loop will make it less likely to burn out of control.
LFP can still fail energetically. When it does, it gives off significantly more hydrogen when compared to other battery chemistry.
Thankyou for providing the info on the blankets. Won't put the fire out, but will protect exposures. Loved to hear the article about battery briner, and curious about your thoughts on the Cobra ColdCut.
I've spoken to the people at ColdCut and plan to do a future video on the Cobra system.
What about an integrated fire suppression system built inside the battery box?
Well presented video. 👍
5:14 "energetic event" -- I love euphemisms. This one goes with rapid unscheduled disassembly.
Manufacturers should be required to have some type of fire fighting attachment that could be coupled to (much like the charger plug) that can neutralize the battery pack.
That's impossible to do. That's why they're such a problem.
Shorting a lithium battery is another risk of explosion.
@@JustBadly There are phone batteries now that can be safely pierced and even cut. I wonder how those work. “Flexible Aqueous Li-ion Battery with High Energy and Power Densities” in the journal Advanced Materials, researchers describe a method for replacing the battery’s usual electrolyte medium with something more simple and stable: Water. Specifically, salt water in resin: FJzGmfBmElw
@@ffjsbit's not impossible. Just expensive. Right now batteries are focused on cost and efficiency, not ease of putting out a fire. I'm confident that if they were forced to, they'd be able to come up with something.
@@ffjsb impossible is a strong word. i prefer to say : "i dont know how to do it yet"
This needs to be regulated. Maybe an access port for fire extinguishing equipment.
Regarding the Tesla 4680 structural pack (possibly earlier packs?).
As I understand these cells.
.
The cells are essentially individually isolated in the injected foam
(there is a liquid cooling ribbon between rows)
.
Each cylindrical cell has a fail point built into the base of the cell.
What normally causes a fire to spread is the exothermic reaction between the single burning cell and those adjacent to it.
When those cells get too hot, they fail, that's the chain reaction.
.
So, in this pack, the theory is, a cell suffers a catastrophic failure.
The reaction starts.
The cell casing fails at the base.
This produces a jet of hot gas which burns through the bottom case of the pack, exhausting the material.
.
This, together with the foam surrounding the cells prevents sufficient heat build up in the surrounding cells to cause failure in those cells.
.
The damage is confined to one cell and the bottom casing of the pack.
.
I'm going to try and do a video on this pack specifically.
I wonder if there could be a special access port added in the same area for all vehicles(make it standard so all fire fighters know where it is) to the battery boxes that is normally sealed that can be accessed with that puncture device and instead of water being injected which could short out the batteries, you use something like liquid nitrogen.
This will cool down the battery down quickly and not short circuit things.
Like Apple and USB. LOL
Whilst cars with LPG tanks are not permitted in the Channel tunnel (cars/trucks/busses taken between England and France on a train) they do allow electric vehicles... until one combusts and people are killed I suppose.
I've never watched a video from StacheD Training... Very helpfull video. Greeting from México.
Glad you liked it. Don't forget to subscribe for more!
A great example of how difficult it is to use water to put out an EV fire is the various videos of EVs that have ended up underwater at the boat ramp and are happily burning away while being completely submerged.
I know of several wrecker companies in my area that keep a roll off dumpsters full of water on their property and will place an EV in them no mater how badly damaged or not they are. Not sure how they sort that out with the insurance companies but thats what they do.
Most emergency response guides in the US say not to submerge the vehicles in water. Putting an electric vehicle in water that is not in thermal runaway is just asking for problems in the future. There are many issues with this type of thought process. I'll tackle submersion in a future video.
@@StacheDTraining Thanks looking forward to that. I am not a fire fighter but I am an electrician and I was wondering about them doing that.
@thehamelsduck1600 Ask them if it's salt water, a lot of lithium battery manufacturers for RC cars recommended cutting the leads off (one at a time) and submerging the pack in saline water for 48hrs to discharge them before safe disposal. I store my LIPO batteries in a steel ammo can with a vent when not in use, they are violent when one of their safe operating criteria is surpassed
@slowstang88 UL has done a study on this and sodium bicarbonate is the best thing to use to remove stranded energy from battery cells. I'm planning on doing a video on this in the future.
@@StacheDTraining I'm subscribing, I'd like to see this. I love my lipo brushless powered RCs. I did intentionally puncture a puffed 14.7V lipo (in a controlled environment and the results were pretty violent
Agree with "let them burn" to some extent. If in a parking garage use the blanket and an idea from Asia where they have way more EV's. Fire company arrives, puts blanket over burning vehicle. There is a "collapsible kiddie pool" that you surround the vehicle with and fill with water. Fire companies in Korea are using it. Assume, like the blankets, it "sort of works" by cooling the fire down. Regardless, vehicle must sit until it is safe to move....which could be a long time. I have seen forklifts dump smoldering EV's into the local river, etc.
What works:
Blankets diminish the fire/lower the temp....but don't put it out.
Immersing in water works, you have to leave it in the water for 2 or 3 days. Chuck it into the ocean....but you can't safely transport it to the ocean
.
Flat bed with a kiddie pool on the back....sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
It is a Temperature game....blanket is proven to lower temp and immersing in water is proven to lower temp better than blanket. One fire captain got a claw, dug a hole in front of burning EV, filled with water and shoved it in. This won't work in the Calahan tunnel will it?
Best idea is, don't commit to "that will never work." If they figure out the kiddie pool thing, the guys at the station could use for the kids on family days.
Very informative
Many thanks for the great video presentation. What methods would you suggest for the Maritime sector? Many RO-RO vessels are carrying so many AFVs . Is there any specific protocol?
The design of those ships makes a vehicle fire an extreme hazard.
Great video, thanks :) what are your thoughts on tbe f500 extinguishers? (They are advertised as designed for lithium battery fires)
There's a big difference between lithium-ion batteries out in the open and those same batteries sealed up in a box. Getting any product inside the battery box is extremely difficult if not impossible.
@@StacheDTraining ah that kind of makes sense now. cheers :)
Maybe the EV pump and dump should be exposd and shut down forever, like it was in 1880, but then again as a soy based population we are no smart enough to figurre this out
@@fladave99 No one asked you?
@@StacheDTrainingSo, f500 would help with phone or laptop battery, but not with ev?
I wonder if it would be useful if the manufacturer were to build the battery box with channels for fire suppression? The fire department could connect the hose to an access port on the side of the vehicle and pump water directly into the battery box. Maybe also add some plugs on the bottom of the battery box that would blow out when the high pressure water were pumped in so that the water could flow through all chambers.
Maybe this wouldn't completely stop the reaction but it could give time for a tow truck to hook up and drag the vehicle to an isolated area where it could be allowed to burn itself out.
Watched a fire crew extuingish a tesla model S 7 times in total a few months ago. Thing kept reigniting. Was cool to watch. Thing bounced off 2 utility poles at over 100mph and landed under some trees.
I think the best way to control it at the moment is, as you say, to let it burn, BUT, have something like a fire blanket to place between the burning vehicle and anything flammable in the vicinity, as you would with a temporary metal fence, slide it alongside the vehicle to protect/minimise the chance of combustion of near objects, keep a heavy mist on it until the thermal runaway is complete.
until the gas builds up and wont matter if it reaches runaway.
I remember a few years ago in the very infancy of EVs, there was a kind of heat proof expanding foam that you would spray all around the car.
This would NOT put the fire out, but to contain the fire/heat and direct heat in a way set by the firefighters depending on the situation.
Later, when cool the foam could be broken up and removed.
This is far from a perfect system, but seeing as how the damage that can occur from an EV fire, the ability to contain the fire has got to be worth following.
It's not about saving the car... Once the fire has started that car is gone, it is about saving the area around it. This is a MAJOR issue in parking garages and underground structures or anything like that.
That is all you can do about these fires - control the surroundings and let it burn
The Renault Megane EV do have a function called "Fireman Access". It allow fire fighters to send water directly inside the battery. I think I heard they are pushing for this to become a standard on all EV.
Waste of time. You will not get near enough to hook up but more importantly once started you cannot put this sort of fire out. It is not about access it is more about the nature of they type of fire it is. All you can do is try to keep things around the car under control. This is a chemical/metal/electrical fire that is also self oxidising that can not be put out it can only burn itself out.
@@mitchellcrane9809 The cells that are already compromised will burn to completion but interrupting them from being able to cause sympathetic thermal runaway in adjacent cells could prevent the entire pack from going up. Obviously it depends how quickly you can get to the vehicle in question but the nature of EV battery design could work in your favor if the entire pack isn't already compromised.
@@OkammakO unless you have a tanker truck riding along with you with the hose already attached to you car you are not going to stop the spread. The fire in these batteries because of the energy density is extremely energetic and spreads rapidly. You have little to know time to stop it from spreading. Battery packs have no fire baffles in them to stop the spread and they will not do it either as it will reduce storage capacity. While battery fires are not a everyday occurrence when it does happen it is unstoppable and there are no known ways to stop it. Ideas out there to try to stop it at this time are fantasies.
@@mitchellcrane9809 That's only half true. Thermal runaway can absolutely be stopped if the cooling is adequate. The connection port could be accessed in a standardized fashion with a remote / long pole. With a spray fan to block hot gasses it would be trivial to get connected sufficiently to dump high pressure cooling into a port. Lithium battery fires aren't magical - just 'not really fire'. Think of the energy of running a cordless tool for 10-20 minutes all crammed into a minute of 'burning' which is happy to catch the next cell in the line...if you can dump that heat into coolant instead of the next cell it stops. In order to catch the next cell you have to do enough thermal or physical damage to make it electrically release its charge.
The piercing method may also be a concern if you are pumping liquid water into a hermetically sealed box that is then turning into steam. The colloquial term is "bomb". Id hope the fire punched a "pressure release hole" large enough to vent the steam but if I was a firefighter I wouldnt want to have to hope.
Could they not add some sort build in fire suppression system inside the battery box?
I was on Submarines for 22+ years and battery fires or Shorts before the battery breakers were the worst case scenario and usually lead to the ships Decommission. Battery fires are first a Electrical fire, the first thing you need to do on a electrical fire is turn off the Electron movement impossible with a cell short and the cells being placed tightly together which causes the runaway then you have other items around the fire become involved meaning multiple types of fire at the same time and location each needing a more specific extinguishing agent (which don’t alway work together. EV’s are a Idea without a plan or proper safety testing, even your toaster gets safety tested which is the reason for warnings like don’t use it in the Bathtub 😂.
What about a port located on each quadrant of the vehicle that is a channel directly into the battery box? Is there a chemical that you can be contained in a pressurised container that can be blown (Like the Fire bottles on aircraft) that can be popped or activated by a fire department, sensors or ??? Is there any other ways to neutralize the chemical reaction taking place?
I agree the best approach is to let them burn themselves out. The main objective of the emergency response team is to protect people and assets in the vicinity. The solution to this would be a heavy vehicle with a car size box on the back or front, an electromagnetic arm can drag the burning vehicle into the box with the operator in the pressurised cab with very effective air filters. Once the vehicle is in the box, doors close and seal, the box is vented out the top and fumes are filtered. The burning vehicle is then transported to a landfill burial site where it is pushed into a hole and a bulldozer pushes the dirt over the top. It is left there to burn out. When the fire is over and cooled, the vehicle is excavated and what remains can be recycled and the hole is ready for the next one. Larger vehicles will need larger equipment. Filtration technology will need to be developed, until this is effective, there will need to be pre-determined routes to the burial sites to minimise public exposure to toxic fumes.
As EV’s develop, batteries will be less susceptible to catching fire.
The way they deal with it in Finland is crane truck and container filled up with water and good old fashioned waiting, they pick up the car and dunk it in to container filled up with water. Might add that this isn't a bullet proof method as was in the news a few weeks back where a battery pack ignited again even after several days of dunking.
Well yeah thats where the whole car should be crushed and recycled. It won't be in any good shape anyway. No use in keeping a heavily damaged battery pack around, ofcourse it can still burst into flames. Why is everyone so surprised, have you seen how they move wrecks around?
A that water becomes highly contaminated...
I have a simple solution, a water filled box... Drag the vehicle over a water tight floor, put up four water tight walls around it. fill container with water. Basically an above ground pool. Uses a lot less water and reduses harmful gasses etc. Ok the car will be a complete loss, but it would be anyway. saves a lot of mess and destruction to surrounding area.
Very cool video. Battery fires are a funny beast, they're barely 'fire' at that point. They are a thermal runaway event where stored energy is released as heat. They're emitting extremely high temperature exhaust gasses that combust everything else they touch, but as you say, no oxygen required. The magic ticket is if you can get thermal access to cool the battery...It won't happen, but: as much as it would be admitting any danger - I'd love to see manufacturers including external access to the battery thermal management system.
Battery is multiple cells. If one cell cooks off, it releases a bunch of energy. That thermal energy causes the next cell neighbor(s) in the line to fail short and start electrically releasing their charge as heat as well, and on and on. The amount of energy overwhelms the built in cooling circuits pretty quickly, as they are only designed to remove a few kw of energy from the total battery area. If there was a hookup, say near the charge port where the coolant lines could be pressurized with a fire suppression system: battery cooling specifically - I bet the majority of thermal runaway events could be prevented or quickly shut down. Use the resources already manufactured into the car.
(aside: To justify access to the cooling system - double duty as the charging station could use to regulate battery temperature by integrating a bigger cooler for day to day operations - the fast charger cables are already watercooled. A charging battery is 90-95% efficient, so charging at 250kw is actually rejecting ~25kW of heat into the cooling loop. Most charging is limited by how much heat the tiny 'efficient' car radiator can reject. If this were an external hookup, the car could charge much faster, and firefighters could have access to dump lots of high pressure cooling water right at the problem.)
Could a fire proof car size shipping container be used? Where the car be dragged in . By a cable and doors closed. Water added to cool the car like sinking it in a pool. After car finishes burning. Water drained ready for disposal using container for safe transport.
What about gaining access to the coolant loop? Seems that runs through the whole battery box, specifically designed to carry fluids.
Can manufacturers include fire extinguishing in their design?
Manufacturers could include fluid input and outflow ports in the battery which would be accessed from the exterior. Firefighters would open something like gas caps, attach a hose and pour water into and out of the battery, cooling the battery.
@@geo8rge Adding a loop for less than %1 of the car's life would be problematic.
just one remark what about battery pack REIGNITING after the EV fire have been extinguished. I have seen cases in the news about EV's reigniting 2 to 3 days after the fire has been put out on that vehicle and having to call back the fire department to extinguish that SAME electric vehicle AGAIN at another location to wait for the insurance appraiser, generally on a parking spot at a car shop or in a warehouse. I think you are right about letting those EV's completely burn down till ALL battery cells have no more electrical energy stored in them, so preventing eventual reignition of that vehicle !
That's absolutely a possibility. Check out my latest video. It drives deeper into this topic. ruclips.net/video/mNYwpTrYYBM/видео.html
I heard rumors that some fds are pulling them into shipping containers and flooding the container. Is this true or possible?
It's something they have been doing in different areas of Europe and I believe there is a system available in the US now. There are also departments burying EVs in sand. I struggle with these concepts for a multitude of reasons. I'll discuss it in a future video.
Yes, we do this in europe. One thing to keep in mind is that the amount of water displaced in the container by the burning car is less water to cool the batteries under 138 degrees (Celsius). So the bigger the vehicle, the more water you'll need to replace (water is vapourized by the heat of the fire, so needs to contantly refilled).
We're working on solutions for construction vehicles and battery wagons for locomotives now. No solutions yet; those fires need to be left to die out in a controlled manner for now...
It would be easy to use a rolloff container (easily delivered and recovered by common rolloff trucks) with a proper door gasket (not difficult), welded roof if desired, and a winch cable setup with a snatch block attached to the "solid" end. A section of chain (think of a fishing leader) with a J-hook (towing supply) with a pipe handle would permit hooking the casualty then winching it into the rolloff. Shut door, fill rolloff, let cool. The rolloff could also be filled with earth or sand which is easier to transport than a container of liquid without baffles.
You can get with your local wrecker/recovery outfit to experiment. The parts are cheap and easily available. If you lack a winch or the winch doesn't work for some reason you can simply drive the towing vehicle to drag the casualty. Wire rope is cheap and the section exposed to fire can be cut off in a few seconds with a cordless angle grinder.
I use all the above tools, cable and hook (but not the rolloff) moving various heavy objects, vehicles and trees with my half-ton trucks (does not strictly require a wrecker) and they work a treat.
@@Comm0ut And what are you going to do with all that water that's now become hazardous waste??
Yup, the puncture nozzle is the answer . You have water to cool down the recently made puncture.
Best way to minimize damages is system which automaticly drop battery to ground and vehicle move away. After this, only battery burn and it is easy to reach. In charging lot, separator walls between vehicles.
Thank you for the hard truth about EV fires. Must say that the energetic event at 5:20 is impressive, and a reminder how dangerous they can be.
This is a very good presentation and I agree with the end recommendation. But fire by definition requires oxygen. Thermal runaway is an exothermic reaction that does not require oxygen. The flaming coming from the flammable off gas of the battery thermal runaway.
Think of each battery cell as a separate fuel load.
It does not require external oxygen. The oxygen is already built into the battery cell.
My first video does a deeper dive into lithium-ion battery construction and failure modes. It takes a deeper look into the exothermic chemical reaction: ruclips.net/video/SWbHMeiSf9w/видео.html
The problem is the batteries themselves apparently produce their own oxygen when burning
fire, by definition, also requires HEAT.
lets say "combustion". because i can mix flourine and sodium and it will "combust".
lithium and bromine, perhaps? WEEEEEEE!!!!
how about carbon and nitrogen? thats a form of combustion... mmmm, cyaniiide.
really, a "fire" as such is an "oxidisation".
rust is an oxidisation... we dont call that fire unless we use pure oxygen and it becomes an oxy torch or thermal lance and simply burns through 3 metres of steel...
but... the difference is heat. no heat... no fire. heat = energy.
@@StacheDTraining firefighting techniques can supply ADDITIONAL oxygen adding to the fire's intensity
what happens if you use liquid nitrogen? will that not cool it down fast?
The latest Tesla cars have the batteries in a structural pack where the bottom of the case is made from aluminium. In the case of thermal runaway, the aluminium melts and the battery cells drop to the ground.
Were they continue to burn like rocket fuel
Where are John Kerry and Greta on the ? In the mirror with a can of hair (or in Kerry's case ) wig spray .
@@stick9648 I think they've been inhaling the fumes from those spray cans...
We need that in eVTOLS as well. Then the batteries can just fall to the ground versus burning up the aircraft with all the passengers inside.
@@mitchellcrane9809the idea is that this prevents the rest of the pack from joining the party, significantly reducing the scope and duration of the thermal runaway
As a retired FF water and direct contact is a electrocution hazardous mixture. Is that also with the high voltage of Electric vehicle's?
It is an issue if the car is plugged in to the grid, in which case there is a possible electrical path through ground.
For an EV out on the road not plugged into anything, there is no such possibility, given the battery pack is isolated from ground. Even if isolation is lost, to be electrocuted, an electrical path must be made between the positive and negative terminals through your water source (and through you), which is essentially impossible.
Our local fire department started to experiment with picking it up with a crane and putting it in a big tank, fully submerging it in water. After that just leaving it submerged for 48-72h. Crude but they said it could be effective
Thank you for sharing this information, To further the conversation, the "box" will melt, it is a thin sheet of metal, quite possibly prior to the arrival of the first unit. Another talking point, water does not address the gases (HF) that result from EV fires (great talking point associated with fire blankets). I have been looking at encapsulator technology (NFPA18A) and the research looks promising, I have yet to find any research that shows encapsulator technology is ineffective (again, promising). I would offer that the tactic of letting the fire fire burn is a viable tactic if no exposures are present. Additionally, this would not be advisable in an enclosed area, e.g., residential garage, parking structure, etc. As with any hazardous situation, full PPE is required, and developing and maintaining (effective) situational awareness throughout the duration of the incident is paramount to reaching a safe outcome.
Great video, especially the view of the flooded area because too much water was used. Brilliant!
The problem should be solved by the the car companies. Every separate battery compartment should have a one way fire extinguisher nozzle and all come together to a few one way nozzles at the outside of the car also all connected together so it can be reached were the fire is the lowest. Car companies put a lot of effort and money making better batteries, then they should also put effort to find out if they could find a safety substance that would react with the gas inside the Li-ion battery and could be injected through these nozzles to put out a Li-ion fire. It is just a matter of time that the insurance on an electric car will go through the roof so these companies should have a lot of combind interrest in solving this problem.
I agree - this should be solved by the manufacturers. I feel that many of the OEMs are focused on developing safer battery chemistry. There are a few out there that have intellectual property (patents) around different methods of extinguishing a battery fire and some European companies do have access to the battery for firefighters. I plan to do a video in the future that discusses this topic.
Maybe the EV pump and dump should be exposd and shut down forever, like it was in 1880, but then again as a soy based population we are no smart enough to figurre this out
@@StacheDTrainingI think a fire safety standard is needed in the future.
The same car companies getting humans to alpha test self driving? World governments need to step up, because GigaPress framed batteries will be impossible to extinguish.
NOT possible......if you knew what you were talking about you would know what the fire triangle is......take away any side and no fire....not possible with a combustible METAL fire
Manufacturers shouldn't be permitted to put something on the market with out a recommended way of putting out a fire.
This is what I've been talkin about one of these vehicles can easily burn a whole apartment complex down.
Also, are they available and are they affordable?
In Europe Renault is trying an access panel to the internals of the batteries that would melt away in the event of a thermal runaway, in order to enable the fire fighters to dump water inside the battery pack.
Water/chemicals do not put one of these fires out.
A fire need three things to burn
-fuel
-comburant
And heat
The goal of pouring water inside the battery pack is to Cool it down enough to put it out
@@jordanrudler2120 putting water into the pack will not cool it down and put it out. Li Battery fires are not extinguishable , you can only let them burn themselves out. It is a chemical/metal/electrical/self oxidising fire that water especially can not deal with.
The thousands of gallons of water are not to extinguish the fire, it’s to wash away the burning ashes and extinguish them so the fire doesn’t spread while they wait for it to burn out.
Need a bottomless connex box to put rollover the burning vehicle. Then add halon, co2, or water?
Rather difficult but imagine Wiley Coyote style could tow it into a quick assembly tank. Would need a hitch on the vehicle and a way to get a tow line on the hitch. Otherwise just build a barrier around the vehicle and wait until fire burns itself out. Big air filters would be nice to reduce toxic smoke. Quite a predicament.
I agree. Unless there’s something nearby at risk, let it burn.
Is there anything from built-in airline cargo extinguishing technology that could be built into EV batteries.
Would liquid nitrogen in reasonable quantities reduce the temperature quickly?
Is there any adaptation of the halon gas methods used in computer centers that would work if they could neutralize or separate the burning chemicals?
it'd be nice to see a standard for battery packs with pieracable zones. a 2" disk in blue or something physical showing the location where you can use a sharp nozzle to pierce in safely and flood the pack effectively. it would be a modern miracle if the NFPA and SAE got together on this.
It would need to be in a standardized position under the car, there's no way to look for the disk under there while the car is burning unless you're planning on literally burning a camera every time.
@@GremlinSciencesI agree on standardizing. Unfortunately, the only thing “standard” on hybrid-electric/EVs is the cable color. It’s hard to standardize the vehicle when the manufacturer has their own design. It sucks, but we must do what we always have - be firefighters and figure it out right?
I'm never going to travel in one after seeing how bad they go up in flames & the heat given off. Fook that
Saw a video from Volvo that used 'brine water ( salty) . The water was cooled to approx' -27 degrees and used to remove as much of the heat as possible. This was in reply to the car carrier fire last year . Seemed to work better than ordinary water .
Why can we not treat lithium ion fires like we do a gas tank fire? Once the fire has reached the gas tank there is no stopping it there is no putting it out we just accept it is what it is. Maybe we just treat battery fire the same way, there is no extinguisher there is no system that can put it out.
A leaking gas tank on fire has a fraction of the energy release when compared to a high voltage battery in an EV. With a gas tank, a proper application of foam can do a decent job. You are correct, it's nearly impossible to stop a thermal runaway in an EV high voltage battery.
If the most pragmatic action, just now, is to let it burn out then I guess steps to speed up that process may be desirable. How about using thermite devices to burn into, and probably through, the battery-box?
If I recall correctly, lithium-ion batteries burn hotter and faster than thermite. I'll need to dig for the source on that one.
That's about like throwing a flare on a raging bonfire, totally pointless.
Getting into the fire solves nothing! The fire cannot be extinguished. It is like trying to stop a nuclear fire in some respects
@@ffjsb well, forest fire are often fought with "backfires" . not pointless at all.
@@StacheDTraining Thermite burns substantially hotter and faster than Li-ion. The only problem with using thermite is you're also going to burn through almost everything below the car. I know the pavement under a Li-ion fire requires repair afterwards, but the repairs would be considerably more substantial after this.
If the strategy is to let the EV burn out, which may happen within 1-2 hours, would using a fire blanket hinder this process and increase the time needed for the battery to burn out? For example, could you use the blanket immediately after arriving on scene, in order to limit flame and gases, while still allowing the burn to occur and not drag out the process?
Using a blanket could present a hazard due to the build up of explosive gasses.
The blanket is useful in protecting exposures, until you can drag the car to a clear area.
What if every battery pack would be fitted with unified hose fitting dedicated for cooling in these situations?
LFP, LMFP and sodium-ion batteries are coming. These are all far less likely to suffer a thermal runaway event, although I don't know if they would be any easier to extinguish. What studies have been done on using liquid nitrogen to rapidly cool the fire off enough to slow or stop the reaction?
So the only thing you can do, is try to keep it from catching things that aren't that car on fire. They should issue a flamethrower so you can burn it up even quicker if that's the case.
When gas fueled vehicles first came out was the fire fighting equipment at that time up to the challenge?
Yes.
Would it be possible to have vehicle manufacturers create a connection point that would allow fire companies to attach into the battery cooling system? Maybe allowing you to pump in a "poison pill" that "freezes" a lithium ion runaway?
I'm no chemist, nor am I an engineer, but it seems like the cooling system would be an ideal place to create a system that when over-pressurized would safely rupture, allowing the "poison pill" to reach the battery box?
You can not stop one of these fires . They are chemical/metal/electrical fires and are very energetic. All you can do is break out the marshmallows and have a cookout. The best thing to do is let it burn and try and protect what is around it.
A brick of C4. The fastest way to extinguish the fire is to disperse the vehicle in as wide an area as possible. Tow it to an open area as quickly as possible, and rapidly disperse the offending vehicle into tiny pieces.
Thumbs up. Sorry to make this bad joke, but 0:55 "... extinguish lithium ion batteries." really make many of us want to extinguish the entire Tesla.
Could you use met metx the same as putting out a magnesium fire
Unfortunately, no.
How about if the hybrid or electric vehicles body was built with a flood tube? What I mean is something similar to the concept of a filler neck going down to the fuel tank on a gasoline car,,, on a vehicle with a battery pack build a fire hose ready tube going down to the battery pack so that the pack can get flooded with water?
I actually have a patent pending on an idea like this. I'm planning a future video on EV fire extinguish intellectual property.
I would say that perhaps the best way is to allow a controlled burn.
There are products that don't burn that are used for furnessess They can take intense flame without burning.
So I've wondered why these things are not used to control the battery fire so it doesn't spread, a fire proof valve could be fitted so any build up gas could be vented to a controlled area.
So if a scooter set fire it could be wrapped with the blanket and direct the vent to a safe zone, same with a car but a car or larger vehicle could have the cover pulled under the vehicle and over the vehicle in two parts which interlock automatically.
The demo of the blanket you showed just needed a method to control the gas pressure so it could be directed to a safe localised zone.
For example, a charging car caches fire, the blanket is thrown over and under it, and it just burns, the vents let the gasses release into the air the smoke could be reduced with water to keep it down with a sprinkler type mist.
So it makes more sense just to let it burn but to control the burn, I would have thought.
Those gasses are HIGHLY toxic unless you let the fire freely burn.
@@ffjsb I'm gonna guess in that case that they are toxic regardless, but in time using a controlled burn in a vented covet a system of capturing these gasses could be developed so they could be nuitrilised.
Also the idea of a mist water spray would be to hold down the gasses so they could be either collected as dust or washed away.
The problem I gathered was the ability to control the fire, so using for example ceramic wool or blanket the fire could be controlled, but as you say the gasses are toxic, it would be a matter of redirecting the gasses to a collection point of some kind.
In fact if all battery packs were lined with a none flammable liner any fires could be directed to a series of vents in the pack, case and the vents could be used as a gas capture point as the fire would have no where else to go.
I assume fire travels the path of least resistance.
@@flitsies Your idea is not practical in any way. EV batteries burn MUCH hotter than a standard car fire, and there's not enough space to put a flame proof barrier that the jet like flame couldn't burn through. You'd also need a huge semi to haul what ever expensive apparatus it would take to capture any gases, good luck getting that into a parking garage, or even getting it there in a reasonable amount of time.
Best option is used on battery powered mining machines.
They have a cooling circuit integrated on the battery with a connector on the outside, like the charging port.
When they have a thermal runnaway they connect the cooling hose and flood the battery from the very inside of it. They can even have a closed loop if not rupture occurs wich is even better.
And government want thousands of those batteries on the road.
What if one of these vehicles is on a car ferry... or int the UK/France Eurotunnel.... what then?
The reason batteries are a problem is because the "oxidiser" is already mixed with the "fuel". ICE cars carry their fuel but have to suck in oxygen to release energy. Hydrocarbons are "easy" to stop burning, foam for example isolates spilt fuel from air. As an aside foam/water also absorbs energy cooling the fire.
Cooling a burning Li cell won't stop it releasing energy ("burning") but it will prevent it setting of adjacent cells in the battery. There is quite a lot of energy contained in a car battery, typically 40kW-hr. Heating water takes a surprising amount of energy so water is a good material to absorb the energy. It absorbs even more when it boils but, as an example, 410 litres is enough to "cool" a 40kW-hr battery. That's just two 200 litre or 55 gallon "oil drums". Admittedly the water will now be boiling hot but it's better than flames and smoke.
It'd be nice if there was a standard way to break into the liquid cooling channels (which Tesla uses, don't know about others) to circulate additional water.
This is where the intersection of land based versus marine firefighting have an issue. Without any strategy to fight these fires on board, you can lose the entire vessel.
It's unfortunate, but for now, there doesn't seem to be a way to actually extinguish an EV fire. Now that may change in the future. The biggest issue is the energy on board. Combustion engine vehicles are shipped with very little fuel in the fuel tank. If they catch fire (very unlikely) its a slow propagation. However, EVs fail very energetically. By the time the crew could even respond, likely multiple vehicles were on fire.
I wonder what insurance companies say about parking one of these damned things in your garage!
Pretty much the same thing they say about parking a monstrosity full of flammable liquid in your garage. Not much at all but they should recommend a heat detector connected to your home smoke alarms.
Is there a way to rapidly discharge the battery into another heat sink? A heat sink could be in the form of a large capacity electric water heater immersed inside of the tank of a water truck. There could be some massive accessible contacts at several standard locations on the vehicle. The fire fighters would hook up the vehicle to a positive and negative contact. Then they could close the circuit through the massive resistor. That energy would then be discharged into the liquid water as heat until it was discharged. The fire/exothermic chemical reaction would then cool and self extinguish.
Discharging the battery causes the battery to heat as the battery has an internal series resistance. The faster you dump power out the more heat is generated. If you short a battery out it is likely to explode.
I think the focus of firefighting should be isolation. If the vehicle is in a good location, like the host said let it burn itself out, if not have methods of relocating that vehicle to a safe location, someone suggested a special designed trailer and winch system. I would think this would mostly be about getting vehicles out of parking garages safely. In the end EV's and their battery chemistry is getting less flammable all the time and they are currently about 67 times LESS likely to catch fire then a Gas car.
the problem with a lithium battery fire is that it started from internal damage from overheating inside the battery cell, this causes a short which gets very hot instantly and causes the fire, the only way to stop the fire is to remove all of the charge/voltage from that cell, which is easier said than done.
Perhaps the way forward would be for the manufacturers to install some kind of thermal shear bolt mechanism, so that if there is a battery fire, small cutting charges will drop the battery onto the ground and then the main vehicle can be pulled away from the fire. This may make some of the vehicle salvageable, and might also save lives if people are trapped in the vehicle.
It's a great idea in theory, however these batteries are a main structural component in the vehicle. There is a Chinese company that has a "swappable" battery pack designed to swap out a low charge pack for a full charge pack. Even that vehicle has a difficult process to remove and replace the battery.
I think some distinction needs to be made on how you define "extingushed". Take for example the widely reported Tesla fire in Texas where fire chief Palmer Buck of The Woodlands Township made a statement to address media hysteria and misleading reporting. It was their first time responding to an EV fire. The large fire was out in about 10 minutes using good old water.
There were smaller flareups (some driven by tree sap from a tree nearby) and due to scene preservation, they weren't able to lift the vehicle to direct the stream. They used a smaller hose to keep a stream of water to keep the pack cool and was on scene about 4 hours due to that process, not because there was a raging fire. That stream meant they used about 25-30k gallons, but the initial amount they used to extinguish a bulk of the fire was likely much less.
So while it is true in terms of a definition of the battery not reigniting, it isn't possible to put out completely, in terms of just a large visible fire, just using water is enough to put it out. Keeping the pack cool also reduces the chance of the burning section spreading to other parts. That is why all the response manuals suggest using water directed at the battery pack.
I touch on many of these points in this video: ruclips.net/video/mNYwpTrYYBM/видео.html
Ultimately, even if you apply water, what are you saving? Vehicles that catch on fire (not limited to EV) are rarely repaired.
@@StacheDTraining For that particular accident, due to the alleged used of Autopilot, both people inside dead, and the interest by even NTSB to investigate the circumstances, they needed the vehicle as intact as possible.
In most, cases yes, preserving the rest of the vehicle is less important. The effort would instead would be to try to minimize the impact on the general area, in terms of risk of fire spreading beyond the vehicle and in terms of toxic fumes released if fire is left to burn on scene. It's possible to control the fire enough for it to be safely put on a flatbed to be moved to an empty lot somewhere where it can be left to reignite and burn without risk to other property or people. Others also pointed out other places just use a container full of water and dunk the car in it.
That Recomendation IS SO IT DOSNT CATCH ON FIRE IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!!! not instructions to you to put or not put the fire out.
I've heard different views on how common electric battery fires are. Is it a rare occurrence or is it fairly common? I'd love to know!
This topic is on my list for a future video.
@@StacheDTraining Thanks
In China EV fires are so common that there are hundreds of thousands of EVs, some brand new, parked in open fields unused because they pose too great of a threat. That should be a huge hint.
@@rudydedogg6505Completely false. The unused EVs in lots in China are because of taxi/ride share companies buying a ton of them when that was in popular demand, but when demand died down they became useless. The same thing happened with bike shares (huge dumps full of them).
Also some companies were pumping them out to get government incentives, even though there were no buyers.
It has nothing to do with fire risk!
@@jakej1837 Ahh let them spread the BS. You cannot modify their behavior. They are NPCs. The script is hard coded.
Good for environment. It's so clean.
Freind of mine was working for a contractor involved with EV bus trials for the Toronto Transit Commission. They wired the charging stations at the garage to a 40' shipping container caterpillar diesel genset. I guess that made them diesel electric