Name: How do firefighters put out an electric vehicle fire?
Brand: cosmosmagazine.com
SKU: cosmosmagazine-com-8
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

How do firefighters put out an electric vehicle fire?

preview

Electric vehicle fires have been making &nbsp;the news lately, including a&nbsp;detached electric vehicle&nbsp;(EV) battery catching fire at Sydney Airport and a Tesla lithium big-battery fire at the Bouldercombe energy park in Queensland.But when an EV battery catches fire, how do firefighters respond?Firefighter Emma Sutcliffe from EV Fire Safe says it’s not easy and requires a specialised approach.“We can put out a petrol or diesel car fire pretty quickly because what is burning is plastics and combustibles and sometimes the fuel.“But we’ve been doing that now for 100 years – firefighters have been doing that for ages, so we know what to do. Electric vehicles are new.”Sutcliffe spoke to Cosmos for our new Podcast series ‘Debunks,’ which for the first season examines the truth and lies around lithium batteries from numerous angles.Sutcliffe says the first issue is the time. While a petrol or diesel car can be put out by firefighters in about 20 minutes, batteries can burn slower for a much longer period of time.Read More“In an electric vehicle, you might have 7000 battery cells and there’s a domino effect that occurs. So, it can take a long time to manage that incident. Typically, the rule of thumb is around three to five hours,” says Sutcliffe.“As a firefighter, as soon as you realise you’re dealing with an electric vehicle battery fire, we need to establish water early. We need to ensure we’ve got breathing apparatus, more operators, we may need more water.”“And there’s a number of ways we can manage that incident that’s being discussed globally.”In some places around the world with more electric vehicles, firefighters have access to a type of skip bin filled with water into which the car is submerged. &nbsp;But in the meantime, Sutcliffe is teaching other firefighters how to deal with electric battery fires when they do come up.“The technology has moved ahead so quickly, that there’s no fire agency in the world that’s developed what we call SOPs or standard operating procedures for managing electric vehicle fires yet,” she says. &nbsp;“A lot of firefighters are worried because we haven’t got this training, but it takes a little while for the training and the SOPs to develop, but there is information out there.”But despite the news, how often do electric vehicle batteries catch fire? And is it more likely to happen then a petrol or diesel car?Listen to the podcast Debunks to find out. &nbsp;Originally published by Cosmos as How do firefighters put out an electric vehicle fire?Please login to favourite this article.

Electric vehicle fires have been making &nbsp;the news lately, including a&nbsp;detached electric vehicle&nbsp;(EV) battery catching fire at Sydney Airport and a Tesla lithium big-battery fire at the Bouldercombe energy park in Queensland.But when an EV battery catches fire, how do firefighters respond?Firefighter Emma Sutcliffe from EV Fire Safe says it’s not easy and requires a specialised approach.“We can put out a petrol or diesel car fire pretty quickly because what is burning is plastics and combustibles and sometimes the fuel.“But we’ve been doing that now for 100 years –...

public

Jacinta Bowler is a Journalist and Community Manager at ScienceAlert. They've reported for ScienceAlert since 2015, covering everything from the psychology of conspiracy theories to terrifying superbugs. They also founded the ScienceAlert fact-checking team in 2016, and they oversee the social media channels.

https://www.sciencealert.com/jacinta-bowler

Jacinta Bowler

cosmosmagazine.com

Credible

Speculation

Anecdotal Evidence

Generalization

Stacking the Deck

Appeal to Authority

Straw Man

Slippery Slope

Emotional Appeal

Red Herring

False Dilemma

Illogical

Moral Equivalency

Ad Hominem

Correlation w/o Causation

Semantics

Begging the Question

Faulty Analogy

Non Sequitur

Bandwagon

Dogmatism

Failing Occam's Razor

Biased

Pure Opinion

Hit Piece

Racial Bias

National Bias

Religious Bias

Financial Incentive

Political Agenda

Gender Bias

Misused Image/Video

Study Misinterpreted

Mistake

Misused Term

Science Misrepresented

Factual Error

Satire

Surface Level

Lack of Reliable Sources

Sensational

Not Credible

Investigative

Balanced

Well Sourced

Great Context

sports

entertainment

U.S.

international

business

technology

science

culture

politics

media

health

How do firefighters put out an electric vehicle fire?

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS