New user
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2 Messages
EV and Home Battery owners, I came across an approved Lithium Ion approved Fire Extinguisher recently
I recently came across a range of approved Fire Extinguishers, I always carried a fire extinguisher in my previous ICE vehicles, I hadn't found any suitable for Lithium Ion battery fires. I thought it was interesting that the NRMA or any of the EV Blogs have never mentioned this new approved Extinguisher I suggest you check out FIREBOX Australia, and Fire Extinguishers on line 'fireextinguisheronline.com.au' for details on the range of F-500 Li-Ion Fire Extinguishers. They are also selling Solar Home Li-Ion Batteries with inbuilt F-500 extinguishers. You can also purchase specialised Smoke detectors for garage use, OR by a Box Kit that includes everything you need in a box. Check it out.
Fireflier
New user
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11 Messages
2 years ago
Thank you for sharing this helpful information for car and home safety.
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PCLoadLetter
Bronze user
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52 Messages
2 years ago
If a car with lithium ion batteries catches on fire, no extinguisher will put it out. It's physically impossible.
A thermal runaway event is where all the energy that's supposed to be stored inside the battery instead gets vented to the outside world as heat. There's no way to stop that fire. It'll keep burning until the stored energy inside the battery is gone. And it may reignite even if you think it's spent.
The only thing you can do is try and avoid injuries and minimise damage to nearby buildings. Firies do that by dumping enormous amounts of water on the fire to absorb the heat and shift it away more quickly. They will assess whether there's an electrical hazard risk when they consider their options, but these aren't electrical fires, they're thermal runaways, so water being conductive isn't a hazard here. They might want to drag the vehicle away from buildings or other vehicles, but their options for doing that while the vehicle is actively on fire are rather limited.
These fire extinguishers are appropriate for phone and laptop batteries. A few kilowatt-hours worth of stored energy, tops. Any self-respecting EV has at least 45kWh of capacity and it's probably got at least half a charge at any given time. That 22½kWh of electrical energy when expressed as heat energy is.. umm.. a lot!
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