Grinstead said Zeus requires SAE high voltage train-
ing for all internal and external personnel that would handle their batteries. Smith, meanwhile, said Blue Bird offers training for all school bus maintenance teams with every electric bus delivery and provides free online safety training through Blue Bird Academy. He said the OEM also advises first responders to treat a “highly unlikely” thermal event on an electric-powered school bus as they would any other electrical fire. Blue Bird also offers a first responder guide for all of the company’s electric vehicle models. “It is necessary to control the fire with large amounts of
water and perform the system shutoff procedure,” Smith explained. “First responders should take care not to breath in fumes from the fire and follow standard protocol.” The U.S. Department of Energy offers a tutorial video
on the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy page in its Alternative Fuels Data Center Educational Webinars section called “Flipping the Switch on Electric School Buses.” Training should involve everyone who interacts with the vehicle, including vehicle support and manage- ment, bus drivers, dispatch, technicians, training staff, and local first responders. It recommends the training include an overview of electric school buses, high volt- age safety, electrical vehicle hazards, restrictions and a tear sheet for first responders. The need for first responders to be included in train-
ing for battery fires was painfully demonstrated in 2019, when a lithium-ion battery in a facility in Peoria, Arizona exploded, sending eight firefighters and one police officer to the hospital. Three firefighters sustained serious injuries including chemical burns, and anoth- er firefighter was in critical condition. No one knew at the time what caused the explosion and attributed it to “tragic equipment failure.” News reports stated that investigators eventually determined the explosion oc- curred when firefighters found the battery smoldering and unwittingly opened a door to the building housing the battery to vent it. The smoldering was caused by a battery cell that
shorted out and overheated, damaging nearby cells and building up gases. Investigators said first responders lacked a plan to handle such fires. This apparently was a lesson learned because in April, firefighters responding to a lithium-ion fire in Chandler, Arizona, approached it more cautiously by using a robot to vent the building, but only after a sprinkler system was used for several days to reduce the smoldering heat to a manageable state. The batteries were used as energy storage systems for solar-generated electricity used by Arizona’s two utility companies. Last month, the NTSB issued a progress report on
efforts by EV manufacturers to comply with recommen- dations to protect emergency responders when fighting lithium-ion battery fires in specific EV models. These companies are updating their inadequate emergency
42 School Transportation News • JULY 2022
response guides and closing the gaps in safety stan- dards and research related to high-voltage, lithium-ion batteries involved in high speed, high-severity crashes, NTSB said.
An NTSB spokesperson also told STN that while the agency’s EV fire report recommendations did not direct- ly address school buses, “The findings and intent of the recommendations apply to electric school buses.” And while the investigation is ongoing, lithium-ion
batteries are also believed to be the cause of a massive fire aboard the cargo ship Felicity Ace last February. The ship was carrying 4,000 Volkswagen cars from Ger- many to the U.S., when it caught fire and burned for several days before sinking. The cars were from Volk- swagen’s factory in Emden, Germany where EVs are manufactured. It was the smoldering fire associated with lithium-ion battery fire. It bellowed smoldering smoke, the signature symptom of a battery fire, for three days before the ship sank. Against this backdrop, the Biden administration said it is making moves to position the U.S. as a global play- er in the lithium battery supply chain by encouraging domestic production. Last March, the administration launched a $5 million initiative to train workers in lithi- um-ion battery development. That was followed in May with the announcement of $3.1 billion in grants for U.S. companies that make or recycle lithium-ion batteries to encourage the sales of EVs. But George Davis, the bus shop supervisor for Fayette
County Schools in Georgia and a member of the specifi- cations committee for the National Congress on Student Transportation (NCST), expressed his concern with the speed of the electrification movement. “What is bother- ing me is there is a lot we don’t know. A school system places an order for 20 buses, and they can’t get them in a timely fashion,” he said. “Halfway between getting those buses, what if they find a flaw in the system that if they’d known about it before they would not have ordered those buses?” Davis said he is also concerned because no regulat-
ing or advisory body is meeting to publicly discuss the electrification. He said the NCST, which meets every five years to discuss developments in student transpor- tation and makes non-binding recommendations, was interrupted by COVID, and subsequently will not have a voting meeting for another three years. “I don’t feel like it’s been thoroughly vetted,” Davis said. “I’m not blaming anyone, but we have a huge issue here and no one is meeting to discuss it.” Again, publicly, at least.
Can charging-as-a-service alert student transporters about a potential thermal event? Learn more this month at
stnonline.com/go/cs.
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