On 20/02/22 11:28, David Brown wrote:> On 19/02/2022 16:34, Rick C wrote: >> On Saturday, February 19, 2022 at 10:24:09 AM UTC-5, >> jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: >>> On Sat, 19 Feb 2022 08:04:54 +0000, Jeff Layman >>> <jmla...@invalid.invalid> wrote: >>> >>>> On 19/02/2022 03:08, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: >>>>> >>>>> https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/02/18/was-the-felicity-ace-fire-caused-by-electric-vehicle-batteries/ >>>>> >>>> >>>> I didn't get past the first paragraph. Quote "EV battery fires >>>> are chemically comparable to thermite fires, hot enough to melt >>>> steel, so there may not be much left to analyse by the time the >>>> ship fire finally burns itself out." >>>> >>>> An extrapolation too far. There are quite a few reports on the >>>> internet of investigations into EV battery fires. The >>>> temperatures reached are around 1000°C, perhaps 1200°C in some >>>> cases. That's not enough to melt steel, just to soften and weaken >>>> it. Thermite reaches around 2500°C, which is not too far off the >>>> /boiling/ point of iron. The chemistry of combustion is entirely >>>> different too. >>> What they have in common is that both contain all the reactants, >>> and get very hot fast, so both are hard to put out. >>> >>> A lead-acid battery stores a lot of energy but they don't explode. >>> >>> >>> It's apparently not prudent to keep big lithium batteries indoors. >>> >>> >>> Google images for 'tesla fire'. Often there's not much of the car >>> left. >> >> Yeah, they have that in common with gasoline fires. A big difference >> is you can put out a lithium-ion battery fire by spraying water on >> it. Gasoline floats on water and spreads like... wildfire. You have >> to use special foams and such. Very hard to put out and very >> dangerous. Gasoline fires make lithium-ion battery fires look like >> no big deal in comparison. They also happen much less often, >> "traditional internal-combustion vehicles experience one fire for >> every 19 million miles traveled; for Teslas EVs, it's one fire for >> 205 million miles traveled." That's a factor of over 10 to 1! >> >> We had an accident on the DC beltway with a gasoline fire that was so >> hot they feared it took the temper out of the bridge girders over it. >> Gasoline fires are so hot, they heat material above the ignition >> temperature of gasoline, so even when you put out the fire, it can >> reignite. >> >> Noooo, gasoline fires are nothing to mess with. Very dangerous and >> hard to put out. That is what you were saying, right? >> > > > What is certainly true, is that petrol fires are no joke. Pouring on a > bit of water will spread the burning petrol if there is sufficient heat > to keep it alight - you need enough water to cool the petrol (and > anything else heated by the fire) below the ignition temperature, and > you need to do it without spreading the fire. But you can put out the > flames using foams that block the oxygen. > > In some cases, just pouring on water is /fine/ - a thin layer of burning > petrol floating on water is not going to damage a road that is already > cleared, and it will go out quickly. But if that process carries flames > to other things that can ignite, you're in big trouble. Choosing the > best way to fight a fire is not just a matter of knowing the material > that is burning. > > > Lithium fires are also no joke. Foams won't help in many battery fires, > as blocking off oxygen does not stop the fire. Pouring on water can > make it worse, causing a more violent fire. The ideal treatment is to > put the battery in a water bath to cool it. > > > According to the Norwegian Fire Brigade (in Norway we have a higher > proportion of electric cars than anywhere else), a fire in the battery > of an electric car is a much bigger problem than a fire in a petrol car. > They have had to develop new methods - including lifting the burning > car into a large water bath. However, most fires in electric cars > (especially newer ones) don't ignite the battery, and fires are far > rarer in electric cars than petrol cars (relative to the number of > cars). Overall, therefore, electric cars are significantly safer (by a > factor of about 5, if I remember the statistics correctly) than petrol > cars in terms of fires. > > > What is new, however, is that we now have lithium batteries inside > buildings in a way that we don't have petrol. The high-risk time for > petrol is when filling a tank, or when there is another problem with the > running car - petrol fires in cars parked in garages are very uncommon. > The biggest risk for lithium batteries is when charging them, > especially if the battery is damaged or the charger or battery is of > poor quality. So people are seeing lithium fires in their homes from > charging electric bike batteries and the like. There have been several > major fires from burning batteries at electric scooter hire companies.Not just Norway; here's one in a UK building owned by Voi scooter rental company. https://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2022-01-02/more-than-200-e-scooters-damaged-in-new-years-day-fire It took 8 engines and 12 firemen to put it out.
scary video of battery fire
Started by ●February 18, 2022
Reply by ●February 20, 20222022-02-20
Reply by ●February 20, 20222022-02-20
On 19/02/2022 20:41, Joe Gwinn wrote:> On Sat, 19 Feb 2022 10:08:10 -0800 (PST), Rick C > <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote: > >> On Saturday, February 19, 2022 at 12:17:05 PM UTC-5, Joe Gwinn wrote: >>> On Sat, 19 Feb 2022 08:04:54 +0000, Jeff Layman >>> <jmla...@invalid.invalid> wrote: >>>> On 19/02/2022 03:08, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: >>>>> >>>>> https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/02/18/was-the-felicity-ace-fire-caused-by-electric-vehicle-batteries/ >>>> >>>> I didn't get past the first paragraph. Quote "EV battery fires are >>>> chemically comparable to thermite fires, hot enough to melt steel, so >>>> there may not be much left to analyse by the time the ship fire finally >>>> burns itself out." >>>> >>>> An extrapolation too far. There are quite a few reports on the internet >>>> of investigations into EV battery fires. The temperatures reached are >>>> around 1000°C, perhaps 1200°C in some cases. That's not enough to melt >>>> steel, just to soften and weaken it. Thermite reaches around 2500°C, >>>> which is not too far off the /boiling/ point of iron. The chemistry of >>>> combustion is entirely different too. >>> A lithium battery fire is hot enough to soften steel to the point that >>> a steel structure will collapse, even if the steel does not melt. >>> >>> If this were not true, there would be no blacksmiths, and all iron >>> articles would be cast. >>> >>> For instance at an airport in Norway in January 2020. Here is a >>> report on the incident from the Norwegians. The effect of ICE fuels >>> is also addressed. This fire is thought to have started in an old >>> diesel car, but it could just as well been a Tesla - we have lots of >>> examples. >>> >>> .<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6juEM8UTsc> >>> >>> "Investigation of a massive fire in a multi-storey car park in Norway" >>> - Ragni Fjellgaard Mikalsen, 22 June 2021. >> >> Lol! I like the fact that you show an example of gasoline fires destroying a huge garage to support the idea that lithum-ion battery fires are dangerous. "It could just as well been" lithium batteries! >> >> Most likely there were a few BEVs in that garage. The report you link says they don't know how many vehicles total and they don't know how many BEVs. So not much of a report. They did say the BEVs did not contribute to the fire any more than gasoline cars as reported by the fire fighters. >> >> I think the take away from this is, they need to park the gasoline cars somewhere else so the BEVs are safe from the gasoline fires. Er det ikke sant? > > The original question was if such fires can bring a building down, the > claim being that this was impossible. But it turns out to have > happened multiple times, with films and investigations to prove it. > > Also note that such parking structures are very common in airports > around the world, and it was quite uncommon for a vehicle fire to > spread to such a degree, to the point of taking the building down, > until very recently. > > EVs are quite common in Norway. And I bet the Norwegians know > *exactly* what kind of vehicles were destroyed, from vehicle > registration records and insurance claims and/or lawsuits. Not to > mention parking-garage records, and audits of licence plate number > inventories taken every night (to prevent embezzlement). Even if the > car was totally destroyed, it would be pretty easy to make the case > that the car was lost in that fire. Wonder why they didn't want to > say. >Of course they know exactly which cars were destroyed in the fire. They even know exactly which car started the fire - a deseil Opel Zafira, which is a model implicated in several other fires. Although I don't know the numbers myself, I would expect there were a good many electric cars in the parking house. However, a high proportion of these would be found in the spaces with chargers which was on the other side of the building from where the fire started. If you want to read the full report, it's available here <https://www.dsb.no/globalassets/dokumenter/rapporter/andre-rapporter/rise-rapport-2020_43_evaluering-av-brann-i-parkeringshus-pa-stavanger-lufthavn-sola_2020-06-26.pdf> Of course, most of it is in Norwegian. The report concludes there was nothing to indicate that electric vehicles made the fire worse in comparison to conventional vehicles (nor was there any reason to suspect that conventional vehicles were worse). The prime reasons for the scale of the destruction are found in the building construction - no sprinklers, and too little space between cars. Like most car fires, petrol or electric, it was mostly the rest of the cars that burned. Petrol tanks and batteries are both well protected and isolated, and are often not involved in the fire. (Exploding petrol tanks are for Holywood, not reality.)
Reply by ●February 20, 20222022-02-20
On Sunday, February 20, 2022 at 6:28:39 AM UTC-5, David Brown wrote:> On 19/02/2022 16:34, Rick C wrote: > > On Saturday, February 19, 2022 at 10:24:09 AM UTC-5, > > jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: > >> On Sat, 19 Feb 2022 08:04:54 +0000, Jeff Layman > >> <jmla...@invalid.invalid> wrote: > >> > >>> On 19/02/2022 03:08, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: > >>>> > >>>> https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/02/18/was-the-felicity-ace-fire-caused-by-electric-vehicle-batteries/ > >>>> > >>> > >>> I didn't get past the first paragraph. Quote "EV battery fires > >>> are chemically comparable to thermite fires, hot enough to melt > >>> steel, so there may not be much left to analyse by the time the > >>> ship fire finally burns itself out." > >>> > >>> An extrapolation too far. There are quite a few reports on the > >>> internet of investigations into EV battery fires. The > >>> temperatures reached are around 1000°C, perhaps 1200°C in some > >>> cases. That's not enough to melt steel, just to soften and weaken > >>> it. Thermite reaches around 2500°C, which is not too far off the > >>> /boiling/ point of iron. The chemistry of combustion is entirely > >>> different too. > >> What they have in common is that both contain all the reactants, > >> and get very hot fast, so both are hard to put out. > >> > >> A lead-acid battery stores a lot of energy but they don't explode. > >> > >> > >> It's apparently not prudent to keep big lithium batteries indoors. > >> > >> > >> Google images for 'tesla fire'. Often there's not much of the car > >> left. > > > > Yeah, they have that in common with gasoline fires. A big difference > > is you can put out a lithium-ion battery fire by spraying water on > > it. Gasoline floats on water and spreads like... wildfire. You have > > to use special foams and such. Very hard to put out and very > > dangerous. Gasoline fires make lithium-ion battery fires look like > > no big deal in comparison. They also happen much less often, > > "traditional internal-combustion vehicles experience one fire for > > every 19 million miles traveled; for Teslas EVs, it's one fire for > > 205 million miles traveled." That's a factor of over 10 to 1! > > > > We had an accident on the DC beltway with a gasoline fire that was so > > hot they feared it took the temper out of the bridge girders over it. > > Gasoline fires are so hot, they heat material above the ignition > > temperature of gasoline, so even when you put out the fire, it can > > reignite. > > > > Noooo, gasoline fires are nothing to mess with. Very dangerous and > > hard to put out. That is what you were saying, right? > > > What is certainly true, is that petrol fires are no joke. Pouring on a > bit of water will spread the burning petrol if there is sufficient heat > to keep it alight - you need enough water to cool the petrol (and > anything else heated by the fire) below the ignition temperature, and > you need to do it without spreading the fire. But you can put out the > flames using foams that block the oxygen. > > In some cases, just pouring on water is /fine/ - a thin layer of burning > petrol floating on water is not going to damage a road that is already > cleared, and it will go out quickly. But if that process carries flames > to other things that can ignite, you're in big trouble. Choosing the > best way to fight a fire is not just a matter of knowing the material > that is burning.You are shooting from the hip rather than knowing anything about it. Even if you only have a thin layer of gasoline as the water spreads out, at some point it flows to a point where it collects, like a drain. That gets interesting! Yeah, fire spreads and that's a big problem.> Lithium fires are also no joke. Foams won't help in many battery fires, > as blocking off oxygen does not stop the fire. Pouring on water can > make it worse, causing a more violent fire. The ideal treatment is to > put the battery in a water bath to cool it.Good thing we don't have to worry about lithium fires.> According to the Norwegian Fire Brigade (in Norway we have a higher > proportion of electric cars than anywhere else), a fire in the battery > of an electric car is a much bigger problem than a fire in a petrol car. > They have had to develop new methods - including lifting the burning > car into a large water bath.Yep, there's no reaction like overreaction. You only need to hose the fire. Lithium-ion battery fires are not hard to put out at all. The problem is you need to monitor the battery for a while since damaged cells can flare up again. At no point is the fire as hard to fight as a gasoline fire. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a36189237/tesla-model-s-fire-texas-crash-details-fire-chief/> However, most fires in electric cars > (especially newer ones) don't ignite the battery, and fires are far > rarer in electric cars than petrol cars (relative to the number of > cars). Overall, therefore, electric cars are significantly safer (by a > factor of about 5, if I remember the statistics correctly) than petrol > cars in terms of fires.More like 10 to 1. “From 2012 to 2020, there has been approximately one Tesla vehicle fire for every 205 million miles traveled,” Tesla tells us. “By comparison, data from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and US Department of Transportation show that, in the US, there is one vehicle fire for every 19 million miles traveled.”> What is new, however, is that we now have lithium batteries inside > buildings in a way that we don't have petrol. The high-risk time for > petrol is when filling a tank, or when there is another problem with the > running car - petrol fires in cars parked in garages are very uncommon. > The biggest risk for lithium batteries is when charging them, > especially if the battery is damaged or the charger or battery is of > poor quality. So people are seeing lithium fires in their homes from > charging electric bike batteries and the like. There have been several > major fires from burning batteries at electric scooter hire companies.You are mistaken. EVs don't use lithium batteries. They are too dangerous. Gasoline or even diesel fueled vehicles are a danger at all times. The airport garage file at Stavanger, Norway was started by a diesel Opal. https://insideevs.com/news/392047/bloomberg-ev-fire-cause-diesel/ You should not compare electric bikes and skateboards to BEVs. If you don't have information on BEVs, then don't try to make connections that don't exist. -- Rick C. ++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging ++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
Reply by ●February 20, 20222022-02-20
On Sun, 20 Feb 2022 12:58:06 +0100, David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:>On 19/02/2022 20:41, Joe Gwinn wrote: >> On Sat, 19 Feb 2022 10:08:10 -0800 (PST), Rick C >> <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> On Saturday, February 19, 2022 at 12:17:05 PM UTC-5, Joe Gwinn wrote: >>>> On Sat, 19 Feb 2022 08:04:54 +0000, Jeff Layman >>>> <jmla...@invalid.invalid> wrote: >>>>> On 19/02/2022 03:08, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> <https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/02/18/was-the-felicity-ace-fire-caused-by-electric-vehicle-batteries/> >>>>> >>>>> I didn't get past the first paragraph. Quote "EV battery fires are >>>>> chemically comparable to thermite fires, hot enough to melt steel, so >>>>> there may not be much left to analyse by the time the ship fire finally >>>>> burns itself out." >>>>> >>>>> An extrapolation too far. There are quite a few reports on the internet >>>>> of investigations into EV battery fires. The temperatures reached are >>>>> around 1000�C, perhaps 1200�C in some cases. That's not enough to melt >>>>> steel, just to soften and weaken it. Thermite reaches around 2500�C, >>>>> which is not too far off the /boiling/ point of iron. The chemistry of >>>>> combustion is entirely different too. >>>> A lithium battery fire is hot enough to soften steel to the point that >>>> a steel structure will collapse, even if the steel does not melt. >>>> >>>> If this were not true, there would be no blacksmiths, and all iron >>>> articles would be cast. >>>> >>>> For instance at an airport in Norway in January 2020. Here is a >>>> report on the incident from the Norwegians. The effect of ICE fuels >>>> is also addressed. This fire is thought to have started in an old >>>> diesel car, but it could just as well been a Tesla - we have lots of >>>> examples. >>>> >>>> .<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6juEM8UTsc> >>>> >>>> "Investigation of a massive fire in a multi-storey car park in Norway" >>>> - Ragni Fjellgaard Mikalsen, 22 June 2021. >>> >>> Lol! I like the fact that you show an example of gasoline fires destroying a huge garage to support the idea that lithum-ion battery fires are dangerous. "It could just as well been" lithium batteries! >>> >>> Most likely there were a few BEVs in that garage. The report you link says they don't know how many vehicles total and they don't know how many BEVs. So not much of a report. They did say the BEVs did not contribute to the fire any more than gasoline cars as reported by the fire fighters. >>> >>> I think the take away from this is, they need to park the gasoline cars somewhere else so the BEVs are safe from the gasoline fires. Er det ikke sant? >> >> The original question was if such fires can bring a building down, the >> claim being that this was impossible. But it turns out to have >> happened multiple times, with films and investigations to prove it. >> >> Also note that such parking structures are very common in airports >> around the world, and it was quite uncommon for a vehicle fire to >> spread to such a degree, to the point of taking the building down, >> until very recently. >> >> EVs are quite common in Norway. And I bet the Norwegians know >> *exactly* what kind of vehicles were destroyed, from vehicle >> registration records and insurance claims and/or lawsuits. Not to >> mention parking-garage records, and audits of licence plate number >> inventories taken every night (to prevent embezzlement). Even if the >> car was totally destroyed, it would be pretty easy to make the case >> that the car was lost in that fire. Wonder why they didn't want to >> say. >> > >Of course they know exactly which cars were destroyed in the fire. They >even know exactly which car started the fire - a deseil Opel Zafira, >which is a model implicated in several other fires. > >Although I don't know the numbers myself, I would expect there were a >good many electric cars in the parking house. However, a high >proportion of these would be found in the spaces with chargers which was >on the other side of the building from where the fire started. > >If you want to read the full report, it's available here ><https://www.dsb.no/globalassets/dokumenter/rapporter/andre-rapporter/rise-rapport-2020_43_evaluering-av-brann-i-parkeringshus-pa-stavanger-lufthavn-sola_2020-06-26.pdf> > >Of course, most of it is in Norwegian.Got it - 100 pages. I can sorta read Norwegian, but it's very slow so I use google translate a lot.>The report concludes there was nothing to indicate that electric >vehicles made the fire worse in comparison to conventional vehicles (nor >was there any reason to suspect that conventional vehicles were worse).For comparison, I looked into the US equivalent, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), which is also a de jure standards-making organization. .<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Fire_Protection_Association> They sorta agreed, but did make the point that EV battery fires developed far faster, making fighting such fires far more stressful. The also made the point that modern cars have far more plastic in them, about 10% by weight, and plastic burns with considerable release of energy. Plastic gas tanks also rupture in the heat, but this wasn't a lot different from a metal tank as to when the fuel leaks out.>The prime reasons for the scale of the destruction are found in the >building construction - no sprinklers, and too little space between >cars. Like most car fires, petrol or electric, it was mostly the rest >of the cars that burned. Petrol tanks and batteries are both well >protected and isolated, and are often not involved in the fire. >(Exploding petrol tanks are for Holywood, not reality.)The more basic point is that what had been adequate for a parking garage is no longer adequate. I would guess that the solution in Norway will be to upgrade the sprinkler systems for much greater water flow, and also to drench a far larger area when triggered by the heat of a fire, to keep nearby vehicles from joining the fun. Joe Gwinn
Reply by ●February 21, 20222022-02-21
On 20/02/2022 23:33, Joe Gwinn wrote:> On Sun, 20 Feb 2022 12:58:06 +0100, David Brown>> The prime reasons for the scale of the destruction are found in the >> building construction - no sprinklers, and too little space between >> cars. Like most car fires, petrol or electric, it was mostly the rest >> of the cars that burned. Petrol tanks and batteries are both well >> protected and isolated, and are often not involved in the fire. >> (Exploding petrol tanks are for Holywood, not reality.) > > The more basic point is that what had been adequate for a parking > garage is no longer adequate. > > I would guess that the solution in Norway will be to upgrade the > sprinkler systems for much greater water flow, and also to drench a > far larger area when triggered by the heat of a fire, to keep nearby > vehicles from joining the fun.The parking house in question is being completely rebuilt. But in general, you are correct that sprinkler systems need updating (or installing, for places that didn't have one before). The rules for spacing between cars are also being changed, AFAIK, though I haven't bothered finding out the details. Bigger gaps would reduce the spread.
