While currently in its busiest year ever with respect to the number of received fire calls, West Perth Fire Department officials still consider themselves lucky they haven’t yet had to deal with lithium-ion battery blazes.
But they know it’s coming.
“It’s going to be the next epidemic of fire problems in the province,” said West Perth/Perth East fire Chief Bill Hunter, who took a few moments during the department’s Fire Prevention Week recent open house to offer reminders to the public about battery use and disposal, and to be aware of their potential impacts.
Hunter was one of more than 50 firefighters from across Perth County to recently attend an electric-vehicle training workshop in St. Marys, where fire officials also learned more about lithium-ion batteries and the fire dangers they pose.
“It’s worrisome because literally everything around us is becoming battery operated,” he said, “and people don’t want to spend $200 on a battery so they’ll buy a cheap one.”
An overheated replacement lithium-ion battery — the source of a growing number of fires in Canada — may have sparked a recent house fire in St. Thomas that left one home gutted and should act as a warning to West Perth residents, he said.
“Knock-off batteries are the problem and they’re not fit to Canadian safety standards,” said Hunter, noting people, for the most part, are aware that high-end battery-powered tools and cellphone users require legitimate replacement batteries.
“That’s the key. If you can buy the original equipment for whatever the device is, it really lessens the chance of a defective battery causing a fire,” he said.
The St. Thomas homeowner suspected the fire was started by a replacement battery, not the original, for a decoy used in duck hunting he’d purchased online.
The risk of fires caused by lithium-ion batteries — a type of rechargeable battery — is becoming a concern because of the wide range of consumer products, such as cellphones, laptops, tablets, scooters, hand tools and lawn mowers, that use them.
Ontario’s Office of the Fire Marshal provides expertise on fire safety and has begun keeping track of fires due to lithium-ion batteries, said John McBeth, a deputy fire marshal with the agency, although specific numbers weren’t available.
“We’re seeing a lot more of these devices out there,” McBeth said. “With an increased number of devices comes the increased potential that you’re going to see fire-related incidences.”
Lithium-ion batteries have been implicated in a growing number of fires in Canada, triggering public safety warnings by fire departments and others. The rechargeable batteries have grown in popularity amid the demand for smaller and more powerful electrical supplies for devices.
McBeth said the batteries become dangerous when they undergo a failure known as “thermal runaway,” which can occur when they’re overcharged, misused or damaged.
“Thermal runaway is when a battery generates more heat than it can release to its surroundings, and so this excessive heat causes a reaction, which then causes even more heat, and it creates a cycle that can lead to fires or explosions,” he said.
McBeth said using specific chargers for specific devices can reduce the risk of thermal runaway, but even leaving a cellphone charging unmonitored overnight has been flagged as a safety concern.
Even if using legitimate batteries, Hunter warned people should be extra careful if their item is accidentally dropped.
“The battery gets struck and it causes a short inside the battery housing and then it’ll short out and heat up and start a fire,” he said.
Hunter also noted that batteries should never be tossed in the garbage. Perth East has had two recent garbage truck fires that officials believe were caused by discarded batteries.
West Perth offers a municipal hazardous and special waste depot, conveniently located at its landfill site in Mitchell, where residents can safely dispose of household hazardous materials safely, efficiently and free of charge.
Hunter said there’s a wide variety of electric vehicles on the road and, although they’ve fortunately had no incidents of actual EV fires in West Perth, firefighters know that when they are in a collision, short circuits take place that can cause a chain reaction in the battery pack and could potentially start a fire.
“Once it gets going, we don’t carry enough water on all the trucks to put out an EV fire,” he said. “We’d have to do a tanker shuttle.”
Specialized fire blankets can be used to put it out, he added, but those blankets are only so big.
He did say that all fire departments, including West Perth, have access to specific apps that pinpoint all they need to know about that vehicle as far as where the batteries are and where to cut if they attend a collision.