EV's in Parking Garages

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I was taking a boating safety coarse recently that was put on by local sheriffs department. During a convo about boat fires the instructor offered up that in order to extinguish a Lithium Ion battery fire that the fire department needs to pick up the whole vehicle and fully submerge in a tank of water in order to put out what is essentially a metal fire. If this is true, it would seems to be more involved than spraying foam on a liquid fuel type of fire, idk.
 
andyman said:
I was taking a boating safety coarse recently that was put on by local sheriffs department. During a convo about boat fires the instructor offered up that in order to extinguish a Lithium Ion battery fire that the fire department needs to pick up the whole vehicle and fully submerge in a tank of water in order to put out what is essentially a metal fire. If this is true, it would seems to be more involved than spraying foam on a liquid fuel type of fire, idk.
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Look at the link I attached in post #41, if you want to see an EV burning underwater.
 
andyman said:
I was taking a boating safety coarse recently that was put on by local sheriffs department. During a convo about boat fires the instructor offered up that in order to extinguish a Lithium Ion battery fire that the fire department needs to pick up the whole vehicle and fully submerge in a tank of water in order to put out what is essentially a metal fire. If this is true, it would seems to be more involved than spraying foam on a liquid fuel type of fire, idk.
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I found one example from the Netherlands.

Why firefighters dropped a smoldering BMW i8 into a water tank - Autoblog

Safety first.
www.autoblog.com www.autoblog.com
 
andyman said:
I was taking a boating safety coarse recently that was put on by local sheriffs department. During a convo about boat fires the instructor offered up that in order to extinguish a Lithium Ion battery fire that the fire department needs to pick up the whole vehicle and fully submerge in a tank of water in order to put out what is essentially a metal fire. If this is true, it would seems to be more involved than spraying foam on a liquid fuel type of fire, idk.
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The battery fire cannot actually be extinguished ... the only thing you can hope to do is cool the battery assembly enough so that additional cells do not enter thermal runaway. Putting the complete battery assembly underwater can provide better cooling than spraying water on the outside of the battery assembly.
The general recommendation is to just protect the exposures and permit the battery to fully consume itself. This is difficult where the vehicle is in a garage. There is some benefit of the thermal blankets to help confine the heat and protect exposures.
 
LarryFine said:
Electricity was feared when it was new, also.
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Early electric streetcars used wood-sided coaches. Eventually, they switched to metal sided coaches. Because the power was >electricitly< the metal panels were embossed to look like wood paneling. Made the people feel safer.
 
mtnelect said:
Today in Southern California, a pallet storage yard caught on fire that is located under the freeway. The concrete pillars have melted away leaving the rebar exposed. Wondering what damage, a car fire would have on a concrete garage structure ?
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Philadelphia had one earlier this year-- gasoline fuel truck under an overpass took out the bridge-- they had to do some fancy footwork to re-open I-95. See https://www.enr.com/articles/56671-...an-destroyed-by-fire-reopened-in-just-12-days
 
jim dungar said:
Look at the link I attached in post #41, if you want to see an EV burning underwater.
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Whoa, thats crazy! I have been wondering about what a auto ferry would do if one of these caught on fire while sailing between ports. I live out in a group of islands so we frequently drive onto a ferry to go to mainland for costco and the like. Thinking if one of these EV's catches on fire mid ship they may have to push all cars out of the way to get EV off or maybe have a better way of fighting these fires. Doubt it though, I think they are just pretending the potential problem does not exist.
 
brycenesbitt said:
Car Carrier Felicity Ace: ship sunk.
Car Carrier The Fremantle Highway: ship sunk.

What should they do: https://www.edarley.com/car-fire-blanket/
The Darley Car Fire Blanket
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That can help a lot to protect exposures until the battery has consumed itself, but with a number of vehicles in very close proximity, there still may be enough heat transfer to impact adjacent vehicles. There have been cases of blankets being tossed off the vehicle when the accumulated gasses under the blanket ignite.
 
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