As electric vehicle adoption continues to increase worldwide, troubling instances of battery fires have led to concerns about the safety of EVs. A recent incident in Illinois demonstrates these fears during a Tesla battery fire that caused a major highway to be closed for nearly three hours.
According to reports from The Telegraph, a Tesla was traveling north on Illinois Route 255 in Bethalto when the vehicle caught fire. Firefighters on the scene worked relentlessly to extinguish the flames coming from the lithium-ion battery underneath the car, necessitating a hazmat response that required the closure of the highway. Fortunately, the occupants of the vehicle were able to exit the car and make it to safety.
EV battery fires are notoriously difficult to put out, given the nature of the lithium-ion battery. In light of this, the first responders did not have sufficient water on hand to mitigate the situation, so they were forced to call for assistance from the Meadowbrook and Rosewood Heights fire departments and a tanker truck from Holiday Shores.
Per reports from officials, the electric vehicle caught fire because the battery had reached “thermal runaway,” a term that describes a heat that feeds itself as it burns. According to available data, electric vehicles can burn up to 1,000 degrees hotter than a traditional gas-powered engine. While available statistics do not suggest that EVs are more likely to catch fire than internal combustion engines, this factor does indicate that they are substantially more difficult to extinguish.
“When a battery goes into thermal runaway, they will generate their own heat and they will propagate, or they will move from cell to cell to cell to cell. These batteries can get over 1,000 degrees, so the key is getting to those batteries,” Baltimore County Fire Bureau Chief Tim Rostkowski said. “If we don’t cool it down quick enough, and for a long enough period of time, it will generate heat and catch itself back on fire.”
The American Tribune recently reported on the risk associated with EV battery fires, highlighting the difficulty in extinguishing lithium-ion batteries. Fire departments around the country are actively developing protocols on how to deal with EV fires as they become more common with increased consumer adoption.
Most often, there simply isn’t enough water on hand to extinguish the flames in a lithium-ion battery fire, where those familiar with the matter label it almost “impossible” to extinguish. “Electric vehicle fires are an emerging threat across the world right now,” explained Eric Kurtz from South Metro Fire and Rescue in Colorado. “Specifically when the battery pack is involved, that it can be nearly impossible to extinguish it will take 10s of 1000s of gallons to do that.”
Therefore, first responders often resort to isolating the vehicle as much as safely possible and simply letting the fire burn out. However, this could be highly problematic for electric cars parked inside a garage or close to a building. If it were to catch fire and firefighters were unable to move the car, it could compromise the adjacent structure or even destroy it completely.
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