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Tesla's and other electric cars have been around for a decade now. It's completely reasonable to expect fire departments to have trained their staff to deal wit

Tesla's and other electric cars have been around for a decade now. It's completely reasonable to expect fire departments to have trained their staff to deal with EV crashes.

foepys 6y ago
You can train all you want but unless you have a burning EV right in front of you, all training is only theoretical. Practice makes perfect and no fire department will set a Li-Ion car battery on fire just to demonstrate what happens.
- walshemj 6y ago
  Up to a point - but knowing you don't pump water onto a battery fire should not be an issue.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    There's been comments here for hours linking to multiple official sources that say exactly to pump water onto the battery fire. There's not that much lithium and there is lots and lots of heat.
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    That's literally what's needed to stop thermal runaway.
- gugagore 6y ago
  This is really not good safety culture. I'm sure it's not the same experience when a pilot practices emergency procedures in a simulator vs in a real emergency, but it's still helpful. Your point is maybe that the simulation is bad. But I think it can be helpful nonetheless. Even if the simulation is "you have a battery fire in front of you. Tell me what you would do?"
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    > This is really not good safety culture. I'm sure it's not the same experience when a pilot practices emergency procedures in a simulator vs in a real emergency, but it's still helpful. If this is really a priority, then make it a priority. Start paying firefighters like cops are paid, and fund the fire department like the police department is funded. In many places, fire departments are entirely voluntary while police departments are funded to the tune of tens to hundreds of millions of dollars each year. In several places I've lived, the only way fire departments would get that training is if someone donated a bunch of EV batteries to be destroyed by them.
- guerrilla 6y ago
  > no fire department will set a Li-Ion car battery on fire just to demonstrate what happens Why not? That's exactly what they do with ICBs and houses to train here.
buran77 6y ago
EVs have represented a relatively small fleet of new and mostly high end cars so far. Which means that they haven't posed much of a problem so far. The budgets for most fire departments are pretty limited and they focus on priorities. EVs are hardly a priority for most of them even now as the fleet is growing exponentially and perhaps more critically, it's aging thus increasing the risk of fires.
dTal 6y ago
I think it certainly raises questions about the extent to which it's reasonable for public utilities to pick up the slack for negative externalities caused by profitable companies. Of course it's a hard thing to price because of course fossil-fuel vehicles have a laundry list of negative externalities of their own.
- fastball 6y ago
  Does it? This is the same issue it's always been: things catch on fire sometimes, we've decided that the best people to handle this are firemen, paid for by the local government.
  - gugagore 6y ago
    But what previous thing is most analogous to batteries on cars? Cellphones and hoverboards are so much tinier. Maybe this isn't the same issue specifically, and some scale of government can require a tax to fund e.g. more education or training.
    - KptMarchewa 6y ago
      Maybe cars powered by literally thousands of explosions per second?
      - gugagore 6y ago
        So batteries on cars is analogous to cars? I mean, could be. Maybe the EV battery is just like a gasoline tank, but something suggests that there are important differences.
      - caf 6y ago
        I freely admit this is a pedantic point, but it's extraordinarily doubtful that any road car reaches 2000 ignitions per second (the threshold for "thousands"). In a 4-stroke engine each cylinder ignites once every two revolutions, so even a 12-cylinder engine wouldn't reach 2000 ignitions per second until 20,000 RPM. A more typical case - say, a 6 cylinder engine hitting the redline at 7,000RPM is experiencing 350 ignitions per second - so, hundreds rather than thousands.
athrowaway3z 6y ago
How are 3 out of 3 replies discussing what the fire-department should do from a training and policy perspective and nobody commenting on the science/engineering of dealing with a EV fire.
- rchaud 6y ago
  Privatize the gains and socialize the negative externalities.
walshemj 6y ago
Any fire department employees should no the basic classes of fire and what I used and not used on them, Any company H&S rep will know this
paulv 6y ago
I think you may be overestimating the resources fire departments have. Many are woefully underfunded as is, particularly the ones that are 100% volunteer. There are probably dozens of things (equipment and training) that departments could spend money on that would benefit the community they serve more than training for ev accidents.
heavyset_go 6y ago
My municipality gives the fire chief a $900 stipend each year. That's it. The fire department is 100% voluntary. In contrast, 60+% of the budget goes towards making sure police officers can make over $200,000 a year with overtime.
- rchaud 6y ago
  This is the conversation that needs to be had. Re-allocation of city resources towards non-violent, non-militarized civil society groups. Unfortunately, in our soundbite driven world, we got "Defund the police", which kills the conversation dead.
  - SamBam 6y ago
    And which should never have been misunderstood. When we say "Governor X defunded public schools," no one takes that to mean that they removed every single penny from the schools.
    - alentist 6y ago
      “Misunderstood”? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol...
      - totalZero 6y ago
        Some opinion article from a social justice warrior doesn't indicate that the vast majority of people who say "defend the police" are not saying "abolish the police." That kind of black and white thinking undermines the conversation.
        alentist 6y ago
        What really undermines the conversation is twisting the meaning of words, saying what you (supposedly) don’t really mean, and then blaming people for interpreting them correctly. Here are more examples: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/how-i-became-police-abolitionist/613540/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/how-i-beca... https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2021/02/12/We-Actually-Mean-Abolish-Police-Rinaldo-Walcott/ https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2021/02/12/We-Actually-Mean-Aboli... https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2020/08/the-abolition-movement https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2020/08/the-abolition-mov...

Tesla's and other electric cars have been around for a decade now. It's completely reasonable to expect fire departments to have trained their staff to deal with EV crashes.

foepys 6y ago

You can train all you want but unless you have a burning EV right in front of you, all training is only theoretical. Practice makes perfect and no fire department will set a Li-Ion car battery on fire just to demonstrate what happens.

walshemj 6y ago
Up to a point - but knowing you don't pump water onto a battery fire should not be an issue.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  There's been comments here for hours linking to multiple official sources that say exactly to pump water onto the battery fire. There's not that much lithium and there is lots and lots of heat.
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  That's literally what's needed to stop thermal runaway.
gugagore 6y ago
This is really not good safety culture. I'm sure it's not the same experience when a pilot practices emergency procedures in a simulator vs in a real emergency, but it's still helpful. Your point is maybe that the simulation is bad. But I think it can be helpful nonetheless. Even if the simulation is "you have a battery fire in front of you. Tell me what you would do?"
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  > This is really not good safety culture. I'm sure it's not the same experience when a pilot practices emergency procedures in a simulator vs in a real emergency, but it's still helpful. If this is really a priority, then make it a priority. Start paying firefighters like cops are paid, and fund the fire department like the police department is funded. In many places, fire departments are entirely voluntary while police departments are funded to the tune of tens to hundreds of millions of dollars each year. In several places I've lived, the only way fire departments would get that training is if someone donated a bunch of EV batteries to be destroyed by them.
guerrilla 6y ago
> no fire department will set a Li-Ion car battery on fire just to demonstrate what happens Why not? That's exactly what they do with ICBs and houses to train here.

buran77 6y ago

EVs have represented a relatively small fleet of new and mostly high end cars so far. Which means that they haven't posed much of a problem so far. The budgets for most fire departments are pretty limited and they focus on priorities. EVs are hardly a priority for most of them even now as the fleet is growing exponentially and perhaps more critically, it's aging thus increasing the risk of fires.

dTal 6y ago

I think it certainly raises questions about the extent to which it's reasonable for public utilities to pick up the slack for negative externalities caused by profitable companies. Of course it's a hard thing to price because of course fossil-fuel vehicles have a laundry list of negative externalities of their own.

fastball 6y ago
Does it? This is the same issue it's always been: things catch on fire sometimes, we've decided that the best people to handle this are firemen, paid for by the local government.
- gugagore 6y ago
  But what previous thing is most analogous to batteries on cars? Cellphones and hoverboards are so much tinier. Maybe this isn't the same issue specifically, and some scale of government can require a tax to fund e.g. more education or training.
  - KptMarchewa 6y ago
    Maybe cars powered by literally thousands of explosions per second?
    - gugagore 6y ago
      So batteries on cars is analogous to cars? I mean, could be. Maybe the EV battery is just like a gasoline tank, but something suggests that there are important differences.
    - caf 6y ago
      I freely admit this is a pedantic point, but it's extraordinarily doubtful that any road car reaches 2000 ignitions per second (the threshold for "thousands"). In a 4-stroke engine each cylinder ignites once every two revolutions, so even a 12-cylinder engine wouldn't reach 2000 ignitions per second until 20,000 RPM. A more typical case - say, a 6 cylinder engine hitting the redline at 7,000RPM is experiencing 350 ignitions per second - so, hundreds rather than thousands.

athrowaway3z 6y ago

How are 3 out of 3 replies discussing what the fire-department should do from a training and policy perspective and nobody commenting on the science/engineering of dealing with a EV fire.

rchaud 6y ago
Privatize the gains and socialize the negative externalities.

walshemj 6y ago

Any fire department employees should no the basic classes of fire and what I used and not used on them, Any company H&S rep will know this

paulv 6y ago

I think you may be overestimating the resources fire departments have. Many are woefully underfunded as is, particularly the ones that are 100% volunteer. There are probably dozens of things (equipment and training) that departments could spend money on that would benefit the community they serve more than training for ev accidents.

heavyset_go 6y ago

My municipality gives the fire chief a $900 stipend each year. That's it. The fire department is 100% voluntary. In contrast, 60+% of the budget goes towards making sure police officers can make over $200,000 a year with overtime.

rchaud 6y ago
This is the conversation that needs to be had. Re-allocation of city resources towards non-violent, non-militarized civil society groups. Unfortunately, in our soundbite driven world, we got "Defund the police", which kills the conversation dead.
- SamBam 6y ago
  And which should never have been misunderstood. When we say "Governor X defunded public schools," no one takes that to mean that they removed every single penny from the schools.
  - alentist 6y ago
    “Misunderstood”? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol...
    - totalZero 6y ago
      Some opinion article from a social justice warrior doesn't indicate that the vast majority of people who say "defend the police" are not saying "abolish the police." That kind of black and white thinking undermines the conversation.
      - alentist 6y ago
        What really undermines the conversation is twisting the meaning of words, saying what you (supposedly) don’t really mean, and then blaming people for interpreting them correctly. Here are more examples: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/how-i-became-police-abolitionist/613540/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/how-i-beca... https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2021/02/12/We-Actually-Mean-Abolish-Police-Rinaldo-Walcott/ https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2021/02/12/We-Actually-Mean-Aboli... https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2020/08/the-abolition-movement https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2020/08/the-abolition-mov...