[HN Gopher] First Responders Unprepared for Electric Vehicle Fir...
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First Responders Unprepared for Electric Vehicle Fires: Report
Author : DyslexicAtheist
Score : 28 points
Date : 2020-11-23 21:05 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (pittsburgh.legalexaminer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (pittsburgh.legalexaminer.com)
| quercusa wrote:
| > The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recently
| issued a report showing that many fire departments lack the
| training and equipment needed to properly handle burning lithium-
| ion batteries.
|
| That survey was published in 2018 ('recently'), so probably
| collected in 2017. My son is a volunteer firefighter and he
| reports that they have had no shortage of training on EVs. And
| that they don't do anything without proper PPE.
| kube-system wrote:
| The article does say that 31% of those surveyed didn't have the
| training, so presumably, the majority of departments do have
| the training. Given the number of poor rural volunteer
| departments in the US that struggle with funding, I would
| assume that 31% probably overlaps with the set that are
| struggling in general.
| gowld wrote:
| Also raises the question of what share of EVs are in poor
| rural jurisdictions. EVs are more popular in urban areas that
| have charging infrastructure and shorter-range trips.
| almost_usual wrote:
| I see EVs in rural California all the time. If an EV gets
| into an accident on its way to a national park the closest
| fire department is going to respond.
| londons_explore wrote:
| The issue of EV batteries reigniting after a crash seems very
| solvable...
|
| For example, every battery cell could have a built in discharge
| circuit. Whenever the cell no longer received a signal from the
| cars computer indicating "the car is healthy" it goes into
| failsafe mode.
|
| Failsafe mode consists of every cell discharging to zero volts
| through a PTC resistor to keep a constant temperature of 150
| degrees C. That will discharge cells as quickly as possible while
| avoiding starting a fire.
|
| If the vehicle cooling system is functioning, the whole battery
| will probably be discharged in 30 mins. If it is not, emergency
| crews can spray water on the battery and it'll be safe as soon as
| it's cool. Or they can not spray water and know that it'll stay
| at a constant (hot) temperature, but that thermal runaway isn't
| possible due to the PTC heating.
| gowld wrote:
| Intentionally closing a circuit after a crash, where water is
| likely to be added seems risky, akin to creating a downed power
| line next to a creek.
| bleepblorp wrote:
| You'll make a fortune if you can find a way to convert 40-150
| KWhr of electrical energy to heat quickly enough to make a
| difference in an emergency situation without causing the car to
| combust (or explode).
|
| You'll make a fortune because you'll have broken the laws of
| physics.
| londons_explore wrote:
| A big firehouse is 184 Megawatts of cooling (assuming it is
| all vaporised). That will empty your battery in literally 2
| seconds if you can direct it well enough... No breaking
| physics laws necessary.
| [deleted]
| kube-system wrote:
| That's not a good way to prevent them from catching on
| fire, though. Discharging lithium batteries that quickly is
| almost a guaranteed way to _set_ them on fire.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| I did a tour of an 80 MW coal power plant during my
| electrical engineering coursework. You're not going to fit
| an 184 MW heat exchanger in the garage the car gets parked
| in, much less the battery pack under the floor.
|
| Also, as the article suggests, carbon monoxide is bad, and
| obviously you need oxygen to breathe, but firefighters have
| equipment that can help with that. However, when you've
| directed all the energy in the battery into a couple
| hundred pounds of water, the resulting 100C steam will
| instantly give 3rd degree burns to anyone in the airspace
| within a 10m cube around the vehicle.
|
| Vehicles hold a shocking amount of energy to be able to
| transport thousands of pounds of steel for hundreds of
| miles. Because burning gasoline is a visceral experience,
| no one suggests that at arrival to an ICE car you should
| vaporize and exploding 20 gallons of fuel. Instead, you
| must prevent the fuel from burning.
| hikerclimber wrote:
| nice! hopefully a lot of people die because of our government.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Quoting carbon monoxide as of it were a unique product of a
| battery fire immediately casts doubt as to any of this being a
| legitimate concern. Getting something so wrong ruins the
| credabity of the rest of the piece. (every fire involving carbon
| produces some CO especially when oxygen is limited and combustion
| becomes less and less complete)
| kube-system wrote:
| It's an article by a tort lawyer who is commenting on the lack
| of training. It is not a engineering analysis -- in context, it
| is clear that those chemicals were simply listed as examples.
| bigbubba wrote:
| Carbon monoxide is presented as an example of a _" Unique
| danger[s] associated with electric battery fires."_ Why
| should he get a pass for being a lawyer? That makes his
| ignorance more concerning, not less.
| mpalczewski wrote:
| From the article
|
| "Unique Dangers Associated with Electric Battery Fires First,
| during an electric vehicle fire, over 100 organic chemicals
| are generated, including toxic gases like carbon monoxide and
| hydrogen cyanide, both of which are fatal to humans."
|
| It's propaganda. "primarily to influence an audience and
| further an agenda" You aren't getting any facts in there that
| don't further the authors claims, and the ones that are there
| are written in a dishonest way.
|
| If the author said that "during an electric vehicle fire,
| over 100 organic chemicals are generated as opposed a
| conventional vehicle fire where 10/100/1000 different organic
| chemicals are generated" at least you'd have a basis of
| comparison, as it is, it just written to sound scary without
| informing you in any way what so ever.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Firefighter/EMT here. Our department has trained on hybrids
| (don't cut the big orange cable!)[0] but not electric per se.
| Doesn't matter. Unless there's someone in the car, we're going to
| stand back, let it burn, and keep it from spreading.
|
| Cars contain bigger hazards than batteries: Airbags are basically
| bombs, and gas lifters (the things that make the hatchback open
| smoothly) can become missles in a fire. And that bit about
| cyanide? Ha! When your sofa catches on fire it releases cyanide.
| That's why we wear positive pressure SCBAs.
|
| [0] We typically cut battery cables on conventional cars to
| lessen the danger of an airbag exploding in our face during a
| rescue.
| exabrial wrote:
| One of my firefighter friends says they're a little fearful of
| using the jaws of life on electric vehicles since cutting through
| a high-voltage electrical cable would be disastrous. Luckily
| there are so few models right now they can memorize no-go places,
| but obviously this can't be counted on forever.
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(page generated 2020-11-23 23:00 UTC)