Extinguishing burning electric cars is difficult because of their large battery packs, which are usually of the lithium-ion type and contain a lot of energy.
Now fire departments around the world have started to equip themselves with special electric car fire blankets, and a video from a car fire in the US shows one in use.
The video is published by South Metro Fire Rescue Centennial in the state of Colorado, which earlier in January was called to a house where a Jaguar I-Pace had started on fire in the garage.
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Burning electric car in garage
After extinguishing most of the fire, firefighters discovered that the car’s battery pack was still glowing, which is dangerous for several reasons.
Such a situation is according to the fire department’s communications manager Eric Hurst problematic both because of the risk of the fire spreading, and because the fire smoke is very toxic.
They therefore pulled the car out of the garage and covered it with the fire blanket, which extinguished the fire.
Does not work to extinguish with water
The blanket works by preventing new oxygen from reaching the burning area, ultimately suffocating the fire.
Extinguishing a burning electric car in the traditional way with water does not work well for several reasons. The main problem is that it is not an effective extinguishing method. According to Eric Hurst, it is difficult to get the water into the battery material that burns.
It can also require a lot of water to extinguish a battery in an electric car. Cars scoops has previously reported on a burning Tesla that required over 130,000 liters of water to put out.
During the extinguishing process, the water is also contaminated, which therefore also poses an environmental hazard.
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No injuries in the fire
According to Hurst, the safest method is to leave the burning electric car wrapped in its blanket for a longer period, until the battery has cooled and the fire has burned out.
For that reason, the Jaguar, still wrapped in the fire blanket, was transported by tow truck to a staging area.
Fortunately, no one was injured in the fire.
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