Lituueum Powered buses and trains make fire departments nervous

My local bus company in Painesville OH just acquired 2 battery buses.A local industry has also acquired a battery powered switcher. Also there are like 30 IM trains a day with Lithium Batterys being a possible cargo. Lithium when it ignites gets hotter then the surface of the sun and water makes the fire worse as water is a catalyst for Lithium. Have not seen yet problems with the new electric bikes but the idea of having a fire bomb between my legs does not sit well with me[}:)]

There’s been instances of electric cars catching fire and the local fire departments not being able to put the fire out, all they can do is contain it and make sure it doesn’t spread to any surroundings. It’s not happening all over, but it is happening.

As I hear it lithium-ion battery technology isn’t 100% understood.

I don’t believe electric cars are the panacea some would believe they are, but that’s another story.

https://bikehike.org/why-do-lithium-batteries-catch-fire/

3632 F, according to the above.

https://skynomy.com/what-is-the-approximate-surface-temperature-of-the-sun/#:~:text=The%20approximate%20surface%20temperature%20of%20the%20Sun%20is,why%20there%20is%20sustainable%20life%20on%20our%20planet.

5850 F, according to the above.

Nope. Not hotter than the surface of the sun.

But certainly warmish.

Ed

Lithium batteries are like welded rail - it is in commercial production and use - it has not been MASTERED.

Combustible metal fires in vehicles have been an issue ever since substantial amounts of magnesium started to be used in auto parts. Try putting THAT out with water and see what happens…

I’ll bet some people had issues trying to fight gasoline or oil fires with water when those fuels first started to become common.

Firefighters learned how to deal with gasolene and oil fires pretty quickly, chemical fire extinguishing systems go back as far as the turn of the 20th Century.

The trouble with lithium car battery fires is nothing in the firefighter’s arsenal works on them, at least not at the moment.

Look at the bright side…they provide a lot of heat!

Yeah true on that just ask the city of Morris Illinois how much heat those freaking things can produce. Hot enough to literally turn steel into pools of molten metal and sand into glass. Yes they found glass in the debris of that fire from the sand they literally had dumped onto it to try to put it out.

Alcohol also burns with a nearly invisible flame.

As does hydrogen.

On a similar note, sulphur burns with a light blue flame that is practically invisible in sunlight. While you probably won’t encounter it in automobiles we’ve had a few fires at bulk sulphur loadouts over the years, or in the railcars.

It melts and starts dripping or flowing around from the heat of the fire, and its fumes are highly toxic.

From last year when the load of Tesla’s went up in flame, It seems like there was another autorack fire somewhere else within a few months.

Union Pacific rail yard in North Platte site of large fire (wowt.com)

Jeff

Let’s all not remind the OP what the C in ICE means. Might never drive another vehicle ever again. Lithium batteries can be dangerous when not handled properly. Regular cars burst into flames every day too. Wooly Mammoths used to gore humans. Seems rather odd to be afraid of this new technology as if you aren’t surrounded by things that can do equal damage to you. I mean, I live in Northern California, Everywhere around me is burning to the ground from lightening strikes and broken power lines. Lithium fires aren’t going to make it worse.

Yoho California doesn’t have the power required to replace all the internal combustion engines just in that state alone. To do that is going to require doubling the power grid supply at minimum to handle the load to recharge the electric cars. Yet pg&e can’t keep the freaking lights on in the state already.

Yes, regular cars can burst into flames but the causes are typically apparant and understandable, say an accident or shoddy maintanance. Woolly mammoths were dealt with by a team effort of the tribe, just as butchering the corpse was after the matter was concluded. (Must have made one hell of a barbeque!) [C=:-)]

Fear of the new technology? Probably driven more by the “If it bleeds, it leads!” mentality of the press. Electric cars aren’t bursting into flame all over but the scare headlines don’t help matters. Lithium fires ARE frightening because they can’t be dealt with, at least not yet. Solutions will be found.

Remember. people fear what they don’t understand, always have and always will.

Forest fires are out of the scope of the discussion. Another matter entirely.

What do you mean lithium (battery) fires can’t be dealt with? Fire departments and fire fighters deal with such fires all the time. Does a person think fire fighters just sit around wondering what to do if they encounter a lithium-battery electric car on fire? I linked these on another thread – they have “trade associations” or “professional organizations” where experts figure out the best practices to fight different kinds of fires, and this information is passed on to the people who have to fight these fires.<

Tanker shuttles for a vehicle fire.

Who would have ever thought that’d be a thing?

Have you forgotten what I said earlier? They contain it, even if they can’t extinguish it. That means keeping the conflagration confined to the car itself and not letting it spread elsewhere, i.e. to adjacent structures, tree lines, lawns, overhead power lines, or what have you. Dumping thousands of gallons of water on it may contain it, but it won’t put it out. Only time can do that.

I’m going to ask tree68 for some input on this, he’s a firefighter himself.

We’ve also gone over design changes in batteries that work to minimize fire risk. This challenge is being attacked from several angles as noted in this thread and others. risks from a 2021 tesla are less than a 2019 and that will improve in each iteration. My point, and the reason I thought wildfires relevant is that looking at the numbers, lithium fires do not, as I see it, present a risk that is proportionate to the hand wringing.

This article from a fire service publication may prove enlightening.

https://www.firerescue1.com/firefighter-training/articles/what-firefighters-need-to-know-about-electric-car-batteries-omiDv8vd87oZ9ZKs/

Note that in one test, a battery re-ignited some 22 hours after they thought it was out.

In our rural environment, I suspect that if the vehicle is not threatening any exposures, it’s going to be allowed to turn itself into a pile of molten metal.

To consider the challenge of setting up a tanker operation, here are the factors we face: Each department in the area (including mine) has one tanker, usually 2,000 gallons. Getting the five bordering departments’ tankers on the scene will involve travel times ranging from five minutes to 15, assuming a quick response by each department.

Most tankers fill and dump at 1000 gallons per minute, so figure two+ minutes for each operation, assuming there is sufficient on-scene capacity to completely dump a tanker when it arrives.

If we assume a five minute travel time in each direction between the fill site and the incident, that’s another ten+ minutes (and that’s optomistic - it could be 10-15 minutes each way).