Firefighters concerned about risks of battery fires in underground carparks

Greg Mason, the ACT's acting chief fire officer, said a discussion paper released by the Australasian Fire Authorities Council, the national representative body for fire agencies, had flagged EV charging points in apartment block parking as a major emerging risk in the next five to 10 years.

"AFAC has strongly recommended that these [charging points] be identified as a special hazard and that a special hazard risk assessment be conducted," Mr Mason said.

The National Construction Code is Australia's primary set of technical design and construction provisions for buildings. It covers a variety of issues from glazing and roofing standards to energy efficiency.

In a recent update, the chief executive of the Australian Building Codes Board, Gary Rake, said the federal department of transport was re-examining new safety requirements "which will help with safety when these new [electric] vehicles are parked in buildings".

Quelling these types of fires presents a major issue for firefighters.

"From a national perspective, we need to get on the front foot with this issue," Mr Mason said.

"If we move on this issue now the code could be applied to future construction. Retro-fitting older buildings is another issue entirely."

Unregulated recharging in underground carparks, by extension cords or "trickle charging", poses a significant risk due to the phenomenon known as thermal runaway. Tougher regulation is seen as a way of mitigating those risks.

Thermal runaway is where the chemistry inside lithium ion batteries becomes unstable and the contained energy released quickly, igniting fires which burn at 1000 degrees celsius and are unable to be controlled.

Tiny lithium-ion batteries were identified as the cause of the massive fire and thermal runaway which gutted Canberra's material recovery centre in Hume late last year.

While the sophisticated battery management systems in electric vehicles are usually able to manage these risks, leaving EVs plugged into chargers for prolonged periods has created major issues. Both Ford and Hyundai have already conducted recalls to replace faulty batteries that overheated during charging.

Greg McConville, the national secretary of the United Firefighters Union, said that it wasn't just EV fires which presented a risk, but also e-scooters and e-bikes which are being recharged in apartment stairwells and corridors.

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"When there's a rush to the bottom on consumer pricing, the cheapest forms of micro-mobility potentially even a greater fire risk than electric vehicles," he said.

"But it's not just lithium-ion batteries which are the danger, but also the older nickel-metal hydride type which have been around for a lot longer and were in some of the earlier hybrid vehicles.

"The toxicity generated by these batteries when they go up is just terrible."

In its submission to the Assembly inquiry into electric vehicle adoption in the ACT in August last year, the UFU said that "traditional firefighting foams do not work in suppressing thermal runaway".

"Typically, thermal runaway suppression requires 1125 litres [of water] per minute to a total between 2000 litres and 60,000 litres [per instance]," the submission said.

"For perspective, it is worth noting that the average Canberra home uses 200,000 litres per year, while average conventional car fire uses less than 1400 litres."

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