Fire service doing ‘deep dive’ on electric vehicle incidents

Devon’s fire service is set to delve into data around electric vehicle (EV) battery fires as it ramps up efforts to encourage wider responsibility around batteries.

There has been a rise in EV fires, as well as those linked to other lithium-ion batteries, including back in October when the M5 in Devon was shut after a car transporter carrying nine electric vehicles were subsumed by fire after explosions were heard.
Members of the body that oversees the fire service heard that the topic of EV battery fires had been raised recently, and would be scrutinised further.
EV vehicle fires can be hotter and more intense due to the batteries and their chemical composition.
Councillor Jeff Trail (Conservative, Exmouth) asked at the Devon & Somerset Fire and Rescue Authority whether the fire service’s vehicle fire data was broken down into those linked to combustion engine vehicles and those associated with EVs.
Cllr Trail was told that the subject had been raised at recent community safety meetings held by the fire authority, and that it would be the “subject of a deep dive” by its Community Safety Committee.
Gavin Ellis, the fire service’s chief fire officer, said there had been a “growing trend” in lithium-ion battery incidents, and so safety advice and information would be channelled through campaigns, as well as its community safety teams and even fire crews.
His deputy Gerald Taylor reiterated that a national campaign being amplified over the Christmas period aimed to encourage households to think carefully about how to ditch lithium-ion batteries.
“The campaign encourages people to dispose of any device with lithium-ion batteries responsibly, and encourages them to recycle them as we have had serious fires where they have been put into waste collections or scrap, and then they have caught fire.
“We had the M5 shut for hours as there was a lorry on fire due to lithium-ion batteries in.”
Besides the incident related to the car transporter, another lorry also caught fire on the motorway later in October, with that vehicle also understood to be carrying batteries as part of its cargo.
Bin lorries have also caught fire in recent months in other area of the country, with the cause often believed to be due to lithium-ion batteries.
The Fire Protection Association states that if a battery cell creates more heat than it can effectively dissipate, it can lead to a rapid uncontrolled release of heat energy, known as ‘thermal runaway’, that can result in a fire
or explosion.