The message in a thick plume of white smoke over the Port of Montreal last week couldn’t have been clearer: it’s time to get serious about battery-fire prevention.

A shipping container with 15,000 kilograms of lithium EV batteries inside went up in flames, and while crews got it under control within a few hours, the aftermath raised concerns about emergency planning and air-quality risks when batteries catch on fire. 

Lithium-ion blazes, though rarer than gasoline-induced vehicle fires, can burn at higher temperatures for a longer time, posing novel challenges. The good news is that electric vehicles are equipped with systems meant to forestall and contain the sort of fires that affect lithium-ion powered devices, making EVs a relatively safe technology. And several Canadian fire departments are researching new firefighting technologies. 

Hot-spotting: Mubasher Faruki, associate dean at B.C. Institute of Technology’s school of transportation, said software in most EVs and many chargers actively monitors and adjusts the battery’s temperature—an attractive feature for safety-focused drivers.

B.C. has the highest adoption rates of EVs in North America, and Karen Fry, Vancouver’s fire chief, said her city has not seen the outsized uptick in EV fires that many people expected. Many of the high-profile battery fires in Vancouver were caused by e-bikes and scooters, which face less regulation than passenger vehicles, she said. Last year, the fire department itself started using electric trucks.

U.S. auto insurance tracking firm AutoinsuranceEZ found that there were just 25.1 fires in EVs per 100,000 sold, far fewer than the nearly 1,530 per 100,000 for gas vehicles. Sweden, another early EV adopter, found that gas vehicles were 20 times more likely to catch fire than EVs.

The problem: People are nonetheless spooked by the type of air-quality issues that affected Montreal, or stories of EV fires like one in South Korea in July that forced 200 people to evacuate and sent nearly two dozen to hospital with smoke inhalation.

Adam McFadden, CEO of Toronto-based Firehouse Training, said it takes more water to cool down EV fires and stop them from rekindling than it does for gasoline fires. That can pose challenges on highways where there are no hydrants; it also requires responders to monitor runoff to prevent environmental impact. Steve Dongworth, Calgary’s fire chief, noted that fire departments may need special technology to clean their equipment after battery fires, as well as the means to safely dispose of damaged batteries.

Tech solutions: Firefighters are testing gadgets like thermal-imaging scanners to identify hot spots, water tanks to cool burning cars, and specialized fire blankets. Last week, the firefighting program at Seneca College tested what professor Kris Gillis called a “turtle” nozzle, which coats the bottom of the cars with water, reaching areas that traditional hoses can’t. 

Dongworth said automakers are designing batteries with built-in ports to which firefighters can connect hoses. The electronics giant LG, which is building a battery plant in Windsor, Ont., published research in Nature Communications last week on a new battery design that reduces the length and severity of fires.

Safety takeaways: All the experts interviewed agreed on one thing: you should follow the automaker’s instructions to the letter on maintenance, and on which chargers to use and for how long. If you get in an accident that might’ve damaged your EV’s undercarriage, hightail it to your mechanic. 

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