FIRE SAFETY


didn’t have an adequate water supply, Firecode would require you to have a 45,000 litre holding tank. Potentially, however, you could be using two-thirds of that on one vehicle fire. A standard firefighting appliance will carry around 1800 litres of water. If the fire service is tackling a standard internal combustion engine fire, they will probably only use about 1000 litres, so EV fires are extremely intense, and require significantly more cooling capacity.”


Figure 7: PV – Causes of fire. Next, he showed slides from various


European countries, where the EV firefighting strategy included submersing the car in a bath of water, and leaving it in there, ‘potentially for 24 hours’. The speaker said: “Other techniques include draping big fire blankets over the car. This will not, though, prevent thermal runaway, and may not extinguish the fire, but it will reduce the chances of car to car fire spread – a major concern as well.” The other key priority, the speaker


explained, is to cool the battery, such as by using ‘lance-like’ devices that slide under the vehicle and spray water upwards; due to the weight distribution of cars, most


EVs tend have batteries on the chassis, close to the ground. He said: “However, it’s an evolving picture – and the fire service hasn’t yet determined what the best solutions are.” Anthony Pitcher explained that the


National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) website has a database of emergency response cards for all vehicles. He said: “You just tap in the car’s details, and it comes up with information on how to address a battery fire. It’s in fact not uncommon for the guides to recommend you put 30,000 litres of water on one EV. To put that in context,” he added, “if you were building a hospital in a field and


EV charging “So,” Anthony Pitcher asked, as his presentation continued, “what will you do in terms of EV charging?” He said: “There is an elevated risk during the charging process; but don’t forget that an EV that is not being charged still constitutes a fire risk. Imagine a scenario where, 10 years from now, 50% of cars on the road are EVs. We’ve already highlighted mechanical damage. A car accident occurs… and the owner takes the vehicle to a backstreet garage; they patch up the paintwork, and the car is back on the road. However, there is no telling if that damage has started a chain reaction to impact on the battery. In the future,” he added, “I think insurance right-offs with EVs will be increasingly common – since insurance companies won’t be able to guarantee that a car is safe following an accident.”


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Technology for those who care


September 2023 Health Estate Journal 41


Courtesy of NHS Wales Shared Service Partnership.


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