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AS PRIME Minister Scott Morrison’s plan to accelerate the sales of electric vehicles is being unrolled over the next decade, emergency services are stealing themselves to fight a completely new set of fire risks that will emerge as EVs become more popular.

Cars catch fire. But data from London fires indicate that EVs are catching fire at twice the rate of petrol or diesel vehicles which are far easier and faster to extinguish. 

But what is not generally realised in the broader community is that EV battery fires are prone to start without warning, burn especially ferociously and can take hours or even days to extinguish.

EV fires commonly occur after the battery pack is compromised in a road crash or even while charging. Sometimes they start from an internal fault spontaneously. Ford and Hyundai have already conducted recalls to replace faulty batteries that overheated during charging. 

EV fires resulting from what they call “thermal runaways” through the battery pack can burn at 1000 degrees celsius – three times the temperature required for a nuclear power station to make electricity. 

EV batteries are made from hundreds of ‘AA-like batteries’ all packed together into one large battery pack. If one battery overheats and catches fire it spreads to the batteries beside it and they in turn ignite the batteries next to them – hence the expression “thermal runaway”.

But EV fires not only produce intense heat, they emit poisonous smoke which is a danger to firefighters and, because it can take so long to make an EV fire safe (up to 24 hours), roads are blocked for long hours causing mass disruptions to traffic. 

This has serious ramifications for those who have to fight EV fires and in Europe emergency services have even resorted to dumping burning EVs into skips full of water in an attempt to cool flaring battery packs.  

In Denmark fire fighters haul burning EVs into purpose-built containers to douse and isolate the fires and to prevent them from flaring up again which can happen days after it was thought the fire was extinguished.

According to the Confederation of Fire Protection Associations of Europe, firefighters need more than 60,000 litres of water and a flow rate of 1100 litres per minute to even tackle an EV fire and need to prevent the water from flowing into drains because of the toxins the water picks up from the burning batteries.

As more and more EVs are sold the issue becomes more urgent. 

The heat of an EV fire is so great that surrounding infrastructure can be destroyed. It does not take much imagination to understand what would be left of a house garaging an EV that caught fire while charging overnight, but authorities are staring down far more damaging consequences of fires where groups of EVs are parked together.

Owners corporations of apartment blocks need to consider whether such intense fires of EVs in basement car parks will compromise their buildings. The same for car park operators.

In Norway, which has the world’s highest concentration of EVs on the road, more than 300 cars were destroyed by a fire in the car park at Stavanger airport in 2020.

The issue of fumes is especially high when trying to contain a fire – especially in confined spaces like an underground car park. EV fires produce hydrogen fluoride which is extremely harmful and even small doses can result in water on the lungs. Intense smoke can prevent firefighters even entering confined spaces like car parks – and car carrier decks.

The risk for car carriers is huge given deck after deck will be increasingly loaded with EVs.

In 2019, the Grande America, a roll-on roll-off vessel with more than 2000 new and used vehicles on board sank in the Bay of Biscay after igniting. The crew of 26 tried to combat the fire but, within hours, the heat was so intense that it weakened the structural integrity of the ship’s bulkheads and hull. There was little that any of the crew members could do but to abandon ship.

Also in the same year, two other vessels reported car fires including a Mitsui OSK Lines car transport carrying 3500 Nissan vehicles, which led to the death of five crew members and severe damage to the vessel and cargo.


While it was not clearly stated if the EVs were the actual source of the fires on the Grande America, or other ships that suffered fires, the International Maritime Organisation issued a paper in June this year in which it said that fire fighting equipment and measures in existing ships carrying cars needed to be re-assessed because of the:

  • Demand for ships carrying large quantities of lithium-ion battery vehicles
  • Frequent occurrence of fire accidents of lithium-ion battery vehicles caused by battery self-ignition on land; and
  • Reports on several fire accidents occurring on ships carrying lithium-ion battery vehicles which are directly related to the vehicle.

Stuart Coulton

The report said: “The ever-increasing demand for ships carrying large quantities of various types of new energy vehicles including lithium-ion battery vehicles and reports on several major fire accidents occurring on ships carrying lithium-ion battery vehicles serve as a reminder that the international maritime community needs to pay attention to the special safety risks of ships carrying new energy vehicles.”

The report added: “The main risk of electric vehicles involves the fire caused by thermal runaway of lithium-ion batteries and the gas explosion caused by the release of combustible gas due to thermal runaway.”

Stuart Coulton, manager – fire products at PT Rescue in Melbourne told GoAutoNews Premium that in addition to the intense heat and toxic fumes from thermal runaway EV fires, there was a serious issue of battery re-ignition which had human safety and property damage implications for those who store EVs awaiting repair.

PT Rescue distributes Bridgehill car fire blankets which are unfolded and dragged over burning cars thus containing the fire under the cover. The blankets are made from similar material to that used on space vehicles to protect them from the intense heat generated on re-entry into earth’s atmosphere. Standard blankets are suitable for a single use while advanced blankets can be reused up to 30 times.

Mr Coulton said that the blankets were suitable for car dealerships, car repair shops, car service workshops, EV charging facilities, car ferries, road tunnel operators (where toxic fumes are especially a danger), tow truck operators, and vehicle scrap yards.

He said Porsche Cars Australia has bought 40 blankets and storage cabinets for its dealership service centres. 

The threat of reignition days after the initial fire means damaged EVs must be stored in isolation well away from other vehicles and buildings which demands a huge amount of expensive real estate.  Some dealers in Europe have built underground bunkers in case of an EV catching fire on their premises. 

Mr Coulton said that the Bridgehill blankets were being purchased by the operators of car carriers and roll-on roll-off ferries around the world and especially Norway where EVs are now widely used and were especially effective in avoiding a major fire if deployed very early after the initial outbreak.

By John Mellor

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