OCALA, Fla. – More electric vehicles than ever are occupying roadways in Florida, however, what happens if it catches fire?
That’s a question that several first responders have been trying to answer. Fires caused by lithium-ion batteries — which many electric vehicles (EVs) use — require a different type of response.
“The challenge you’ve got is when an EV catches on fire. The only thing you can do is watch it burn,” said State Fire Marshal and Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis.
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It’s why several experts, manufacturers, and first responders came to Florida Fire State College to demonstrate techniques and ways to help create rules to prevent and stop lithium-ion battery fires during a two-symposium.
”This is something we can go and pull out all the batteries that are in the house and then we can overpack them in a drum and a small five-gallon drum with a material like this. It’ll basically neutralize it so it won’t ignite again,” said Florida Division of State Fire Marshal Director JoAnne Rice.
A News 6 investigation found there were no rules in place for safely storing the batteries that are known to overheat and catch fire. Patronis said our efforts helped them create new legislation to lay the groundwork to establish those procedures.
”All these folks are here together to share their best practice technology ideas as we start to push forward ways to keep our first responders and our citizens safe,” Patronis said. ”We got different types of nozzles that have been developed, firefighting nozzles. It might be a really powerful jet spray that can cut through a battery,” Rice said.
Rice also said that a chemical reaction between saltwater and lithium-ion batteries caused nearly 20 electric vehicle fires during Hurricane Ian. The symposium is a step in the rulemaking process to prevent those blazes.
”There’s so much technology that’s happening and given us different tools in the toolbox for EV Fire, for a house fire, for a micro-mobility device fire,” Rice said. “We’re faced with this in a lot of different situations. We need a lot of different tools.”
Patronis said a large majority of drivers are still using gas-operated vehicles, but the number of EV vehicles and demand for them is still growing.
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