At the recent EV Infrastructure Summit in Sydney I caught up with Dan Fish, EV Technical Specialist at EV FireSafe to chat about what he and Emma Sutcliffe, EV FireSafe Project Director and industry legend have been up to.
EV FireSafe are an Australian Organisation backed by the Australian Department of Defence, leading the world in EV fire research, investigating reported EV fires here and abroad, providing verified data on fire statistics, and training and best practice for first responders to EV fires and owners and electricians designing and installing EV charging.
To say they have a foundational global role in the safe transition to EV is an understatement.
Emma and Dan have recently returned from a trip including the World EV Summit in Norway and several US states, and while we in Australia often point to Europe or the US as more mature markets, in the area of fire safety and EV fire research, Dan says, we’re all in this together.
“The learnings are the same,” Fish says, “and globally the data is still very new” But what the EV FireSafe team are discovering, as they dig into reported EV fires internationally, is that there is a lot of misrepresentation in the data that’s reported, so the team is digging deeper to get to the true numbers.
“Of the EV fires reported either in the media or by fire agencies, only a small number will involve the lithium-ion battery pack; the data indicates that when an EV catches fire, there’s only a 38% chance the battery is involved.
Without a battery fire – known as thermal runaway – it’s just a ‘normal’ car fire, in that the cabin and plastics are burning, not the battery itself. But these often get counted as battery fires.
“Plus, there are heaps of incidents where someone has blamed an EV, but it turns out to be an internal combustion vehicle. But that often doesn’t get reported accurately, particularly on social media and by YouTubers chasing clicks, and the result is we have loads of first responders getting disinformation, limited access to real data and very little training.
So, globally, we’ve got first responders who are concerned about managing EVs in accidents or on fire. But if the battery isn’t involved, there’s a very good chance of putting the fire out with normal methods.”
Of the tour, Dan says, three of the EV FireSafe team, Emma, Dan and Glenn Prőebstl flew to Oslo, Norway, for Emma to present at the Nordic EV Summit.
Emma’s talk covered the global incident rates and emergency response considerations and how OEM’s can enhance their products to support responder safety and awareness. This talk finished off with a panel discussion with representatives from shipping, firefighting, and cell design & research.
“The Nordic EV Summit also gave us the chance to look at some of the latest designs in EVSE, electric snow mobility, marine and meet colleagues from around the world.” says Dan.
“We had a great chat with Rune Wiggo Johnson from the Norwegian Fire Service who gave us their EV fire stats; in 2022, of 598,712 EVs on the road there were 33 fires, and of 1,957,671 ICE cars on the road there were 704 fires. But, of the EV fires, that includes both battery fires and cabin fires, so the number of thermal runaway events is even lower.
But, if we take the total of 33, that means there’s a 0.0055% chance of an EV fire vs a 0.03% chance with internal combustion vehicles in Norway, which is a country known for it’s high uptake of EVs.”
The team also visited inductive and pantograph charging sites, plus an underground carpark for EVs, with charging to all 180 spaces.
“Australia is somewhat more risk adverse compared to European markets, where legacy buildings may be literally hundreds of years old and not adaptable to modern fire safety standards.
“Charging is rapidly being installed and some countries are using the transition to EV to upgrade their fire protection systems, such as sprinklers and ventilation, to protect against fires in ALL vehicles, not just EV.”
It was then onto Los Angeles and a ‘Silent Cruise’ on the rooftop of the Petersen Automotive Museum and looking at the newest EVs across the broad market available in the US, combined with several important historical pieces, including the Tesla Cybertruck that was infamously shot on stage during its launch, to Rivian’s, Lucid’s, eHummer, Nissan Ariya’s & Leafs, and even a BEV converted ‘57 Bel Air.
“The range of EVs on the road was amazing; it was ‘spot the petrol car’ in many parts of LA, rather than ‘spot the EV’ which our team plays here in Australia,” Dan said.
Next stop was San Francisco, to visit the facilities where Tesla make the grid-scale Battery Energy Storage “Mega Pack” units, check out a few Telsa Semi’s, and a full tour of the Fremont factory.
“Seeing the whole production line process, from a single cell, to a battery pack and finish with a complete vehicle was amazing!” says Dan, of a tour envied by car fanatics everywhere, “We were also fortunate to be invited to visit their in-house fire brigade and watch a live crash test of the latest release Model 3”
The team then travelled to Indianapolis for FDIC, America’s largest firefighting conference, to listen to EV fire lectures and train with their US counterparts.
“The Americans are gaining valuable real-world experience and aren’t afraid to experiment with tools and methods to manage EV fires, so it was awesome to hang out and make some new friends.
It was particularly interesting to get up close and use tools like the underbody sprays and fire blankets, to see where they might be useful incident management tools.”
They also visited Underwriters Laboratories in Chicago, who have just completed a large-scale burn of eight EVs, and toured the test site and learn their methods for putting an EV battery pack into thermal runaway.
“We were preparing to support the burn of an electric Kona in Western Australia, so wanted to understand how UL had got their EVs to go into thermal runaway successfully.
It’s actually very hard to get a battery to burn, so their advice was very useful.”
From there, they went to San Diego to spend time with a Battalion Commander who managed the removal of burnt EVs from the Lahina, Hawaii, fire in 2023.
“This was a fascinating story and very relevant to Australia, where severe bushfires and floods are now commonplace. The safe, large-scale removal of burnt EVs, as well as other lithium-ion battery powered items, such as battery storage systems, is something EV FireSafe is gearing up to be able to manage in future, so the learnings there were invaluable.”
Everywhere the team travelled, they spent time exploring best practice EV charging sites for fire and emergency responder safety.
When it comes to charging, Dan says there’s a misconception that plugging in an EV can cause a fireball.
“It’s simply not the case. EVs have multiple safety systems when connecting to charging and if a fault is detected will refuse to flow power.
Our data indicates around 18% of battery fires occur at charging sites, but that’s primarily due to a fault with the battery pack, or it being previously damaged by collision, submersion in water or another fire that spread to the car.
Until now, due to fires where charge cables are engaged with a vehicle, charging has been seen as a high fire risk factor, impacting decisions on where charging systems are installed, and necessitating expensive upgrades to a buildings sprinkler and fire systems.
Because it’s such a common question, usually from building owners worried about expensive upgrades to fire protection systems, EV FireSafe have developed an online report that stresses the importance of electrical compliance, proper installation and then provides site owners with a heap of templates, posters and plans that can be used to raise awareness and reduce the risk of a battery fire at charging.
“It’s probably the most common question people have for us, so we’ve put everything we know in one place where people can pull out the bits of information relevant to them, plus ask us a question so we can create a new checklist and share that with everyone who’s bought the report.”
Globally, Dan says, the importance of EV fire research is gaining a voice, particularly where led by insurance interests, and that coordination in data sharing would benefit everyone in making our transition easier for legislators, and safer for drivers and first responders alike.
Dan has promised to provide updates on the data and learnings from the recent Kona testing that the EV FireSafe team assisted the Western Australia Department of Fire & Emergency Services with, where the battery pack was forced into thermal runaway for science.
