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Speaking as a former firefighter who has followed this space with some interest, I'll say that this article jibes with my understanding of the situation. Which,

Speaking as a former firefighter who has followed this space with some interest, I'll say that this article jibes with my understanding of the situation. Which, to summarize in tl/dr; form could possibly be stated as "EV's are less likely to catch on fire than ICE vehicles, but when they do catch on fire they can be much harder to extinguish." Unfortunately I think the article above downplays the impact on firefighters who have to deal with these fires. I looked up one of the Tesla emergency response guides[1][2] once, and at one time the language (which does change from time to time) mentioned the possible need to flow water on a Tesla fire for up to 24 hours. Now I don't know if any agency has ever found that they had to remain on scene with one of these things for a full 24 hours or not, but I've heard many anecdotal accounts of units having to spend substantially more time on scene with these than with a comparable ICE, and then still sometimes having to deal with multiple rekindles. In some cases the rekindle problem has resulted in departments bringing in heavy equipment to dig a small pond, filling it with water, and submerging the car in it.[3] This is not a minor problem. Nearly every fire department (in the US at least) these days is running pretty lean on staffing in the first place, and having to take multiple companies out of service for an extended period of time to deal with this can be a huge strain on the department and potentially inhibit their ability to deal with other calls. And that's talking about paid departments. A volunteer department dealing with one of these could really be in a struggle, between the need to ask volunteer members to commit to that amount of time on scene, as well as the need to request potentially many tankers for a water shuttle (volunteer departments often cover rural areas where pressurized hydrants can be few and far between, to non-existent). Hopefully technology will help with some of this. Some departments are already starting to experiment with new techniques[4][5] for handling EV fires, which is good. [1]: https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/downloads/Model_3_Emergency_Response_Guide_en.pdf https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/downloads/Model_3_... [2]: https://www.tesla.com/firstresponders https://www.tesla.com/firstresponders [3]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2022/06/23/tesla-fire-california-reignites/7709296001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2022/06/23/tesla-f... [4]: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/11/new-firefighting-tool-delivers-water-directly-to-blazing-ev-batteries/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/11/new-firefighting-tool-d... [5]: https://www.liveactionsafety.com/fol-da-tank-electric-vehicle-tank-ev-tank/ https://www.liveactionsafety.com/fol-da-tank-electric-vehicl...

IcePic 3y ago
> Which, to summarize in tl/dr; form could possibly be stated as "EV's are less likely to catch on fire than ICE vehicles, but when they do catch on fire they can be much harder to extinguish." I have checked statistics for Sweden only, but here the last three years the numbers have stayed at 20 EVs every year that catch fire, even though the number of EVs have doubled in this period. In the same time period, around 3400 non-EVs catch fire per year, so it's "once every three weeks" in the country for EVs and "almost 10 a day" for non-EVs.
audunw 3y ago
I think this issue is mainly about getting the right equipment and training. Since some countries are far ahead I’m sure the available training material is rapidly getting better. I’ve been saying for a while that we’d see something like a kiddie pool to contain water around a EV with thermal runaway. So [5] was very interesting and fun to see. The total load on fire departments should be lower. We’re hitting 30-50% EVs on the road in some cities in Norway, and fire departments here seem very positive. There’s fewer fires so even if it’s a bit more challenging to handle it should be a net positive.

IcePic 3y ago

> Which, to summarize in tl/dr; form could possibly be stated as "EV's are less likely to catch on fire than ICE vehicles, but when they do catch on fire they can be much harder to extinguish." I have checked statistics for Sweden only, but here the last three years the numbers have stayed at 20 EVs every year that catch fire, even though the number of EVs have doubled in this period. In the same time period, around 3400 non-EVs catch fire per year, so it's "once every three weeks" in the country for EVs and "almost 10 a day" for non-EVs.

audunw 3y ago

I think this issue is mainly about getting the right equipment and training. Since some countries are far ahead I’m sure the available training material is rapidly getting better. I’ve been saying for a while that we’d see something like a kiddie pool to contain water around a EV with thermal runaway. So [5] was very interesting and fun to see. The total load on fire departments should be lower. We’re hitting 30-50% EVs on the road in some cities in Norway, and fire departments here seem very positive. There’s fewer fires so even if it’s a bit more challenging to handle it should be a net positive.