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Lithium-ion battery fires and investigations
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Chief Fire Marshal Flynn discusses the challenges and procedures related to lithium-ion battery fires and their investigations. He emphasizes the department's approach to handling these dangerous situations.
- Lithium-ion battery fires are treated as imminent dangers due to their propensity to reignite
- Hazmat units are called to safely collect and package battery cells found at fire scenes
- All battery cells are treated as potential hazards, even if not directly involved in the fire
- The department has developed specific protocols for handling lithium-ion battery incidents
Joann Ariola
1:06:17
Okay.
1:06:18
Okay.
1:06:18
Thank you for that.
1:06:20
Okay.
1:06:21
I'm going to now turn over to what my colleague was talking about, which is Lithia on battery fires.
1:06:27
So I know that it's a learning curve because these are things that have been happening over the last number of years, and we know that it's you know, it's it's difficult.
1:06:41
Right?
1:06:41
We're seeing now lithium ion batteries exploding in the back of garbage trucks.
1:06:46
And, you know, we know that many lives have been lost because of lithium ion batteries.
1:06:50
My applaud the department for, you know, your groundbreaking regulations and changes in policy when it comes to protection for your members when going out and and investigating.
1:07:04
But more importantly putting out these fires because they are a challenge to say the very least.
1:07:12
So to my colleague's point, oftentimes, FDNY conducts investigations, and they're related to improper storage of lithium ion batteries and electric mobility devices.
1:07:29
When you visit a location that has that, what is the practice after that?
1:07:33
Are they confiscated you know, are you able to confiscate them?
1:07:37
Like, how how can you protect the surrounding area from people who are bad actors and have these these uncertified lithium ion batteries or illwired electric mobility devices.
Daniel Flynn
1:07:54
Yeah.
1:07:55
So you you recognize our efforts and I appreciate that, but I also recognize the council's efforts in putting together legislation to to Thank you.
1:08:03
Kind of curb this.
1:08:04
And I think it's been effective.
1:08:06
You I think you're referring to post fire.
1:08:09
These are post fire or or just inspections on on that.
Joann Ariola
1:08:12
I think I yeah.
1:08:13
I I think it's post fire, like going in know, you you get a tip.
Daniel Flynn
1:08:16
Yes.
1:08:17
So post post fire, if we determine that the cause of that fire was a lithium ion battery.
1:08:21
If we even if we discover lithium ion battery cells at a location because not every time that we discover these devices at a fire scene, they're so prevalent within our city, not every time are they the cause.
1:08:33
So if they are subjected to fire, they may fail, but they may not be the original cause of that fire.
1:08:38
We view these cells as imminent danger to to the public.
1:08:43
They do have a tendency to reignite the cells, and they can be ejected up to 60 feet from where the device is.
1:08:50
So anytime the marshals encounter even one cell, while we're conducting our investigation, we request our hazmat units to come out there and package it safely.
1:08:59
When hazmat does come out, they they treat it as an imminent fire.
1:09:04
They're fully encapsulated on air to collect these these devices.
1:09:07
They're packaged in barrels with with a material that we call cell block that would prevent them from from reigniting.
1:09:14
So we treat every one of these as as almost an explosive device that could go off at any time.
1:09:21
So anytime we find them, we will back out, the marshals will back out, treat it as it could erupt into flame at any minute, and we request that hazmat unit to safely collect that and neutralize it.
1:09:35
So all those cells, if we find individual cells, even if they have not been part of the in the area of the fire, we treat those as such because they may have may have been subjected to heat.
1:09:44
And it's very hard for us to determine which ones will fail which ones are will not.
1:09:49
It's very hard.
1:09:50
You have to look internally at these cells, which is impossible.
1:09:54
So we treat that very, very carefully and safely.
1:09:58
We will not operate in an area where we know that some of those cells are subjected to fire.