Car fires are tricky business. With ICE fires, gasoline can fuel a fire beyond the capacity of an average fire engine without a supply line attached to a hydrant. However, electric vehicles, or EVs, can burn long after fire crews initially extinguish them. Still, even with the unique fire risk, firefighters have tools and tactics at their disposal to fight electric car fires.
According to former Verdoy, New York fire chief and journalist Al Petrillo of Fire Apparatus Magazine, firefighters have found success with three tactics regarding electric car fires: cooling, submerging, and burning. As for cooling, there are several devices firefighters can use to cool electric car fires.
However, despite the diversity of tools available to fire service professionals, they all have something in common. Specifically, each device inserts under the battery arrays of a modern EV and sprays upward to cool the inferno.
For instance, Petrillo details several devices that fix to a 2 ½-inch “large diameter hose” (LDH) and slide underneath an EV to cool electric car fires. One such device is the “Turtle Fire System,” a device resembling a turtle shell with handles. The Turtle Fire System fits under a car and can deliver over 500 gallons per minute (GPM) at 100 PSI with a 2 ½-inch line.
Tragically, cooling the battery pan is often more of a holding action in an emergency. Petrillo quoted Keith Creely, the vice president of Ziamatic Corp. “These units are designed to buy time to allow a rescue or to slow the EV fire down until the vehicle can be moved to a safer location. Really, there’s no stopping an EV battery fire once it goes into thermal runaway.”
In addition to cooling, firefighters can use submerging and burning to quell a nasty EV fire. I know, burning to beat a fire? Hear me out. Some electric car fires are best left to burn. Fortunately, fire departments can use devices like a large fire blanket to smother an EV fire and allow it to “burn out at a slower rate.” Additionally, flood barriers can be a useful means of creating a pool around a burning EV. As such, firefighters can submerge a burning battery electric vehicle.
