It’s not every day you get donated a brand new electric car but when Puslinch fire did, they trained on it.
Puslinch firefighters and some from other departments around Wellington County got some hands-on extrication training with a Volvo EX30, a fully electric vehicle not yet for sale in Canada, and an auto extrication expert which included opening up the car with the jaws of life and proper window breaking.
With electric vehicles becoming increasingly popular, Puslinch fire chief Jamie MacNeil said in turn his department is seeing more collisions involving them.
“On the 401 we see a lot of electric vehicles, every car manufacturer out there has one, either a hybrid or fully electric,” MacNeil said. “There’s some pretty scary things that can happen with electric vehicles, even after the keys are out of the vehicle.”
What MacNeil said is different about approaching an electric vehicle as a firefighter is the location of high voltage lines running through them, meanwhile with a gas powered car they could cut a door or a frame with confidence there are no wires or just low voltage ones.
“With electric cars, you could have high voltage wires running through it and that’s like cutting through basically a hydro line with your tool,” MacNeil said.
Although the firefighters were not training on a fire, the fire chief noted electric vehicle fires are also different to tackle for fire departments.
“They are extremely intense with thermal runoff, it takes copious amounts of water to put one battery cell out and these cars have multiple battery cells,” MacNeil said, adding they will wait for after the fire is out based on manufacturer recommendation because they can catch fire again.
With this in mind, MacNeil said he’s grateful to Volvo for the donated car, made possible due to a volunteer with the department working for Volvo, to give firefighters some practical training.
“There’s a lot of work being put in by multiple agencies like the Ontario Fire Marshals doing a lot of stuff with lithium ion batteries, that’s what’s inside the vehicles,” MacNeil said. “They’re doing a lot of training around it and ways to mitigate fires, ways to put fires out easier and educate the public.”
MacNeil urged the public who have or get an electric vehicle to ensure a certified electrician installs the charging system at their home and to follow the manufacturer’s guidelines when replacing any batteries.