NFPA Journal - Winter 2024 - 24

In the last decade or so, lithium-ion batteries
have developed a bit of a reputation among
researchers for being stubborn subjects.
For researcher Victoria Hutchison, trying to find
workable solutions to the technology's long list of
safety concerns has been like playing a never-ending
game of Whac-A-Mole.
" Every time you think you might have a strategy
that solves one problem, you're creating another
seven problems, " said Hutchison, a senior research
project manager at the Fire Protection Research
Foundation, NFPA's research arm. " It's all a trade-off.
And that's what the research is trying to understand:
What trade-offs are better than others? "
The breakneck speed at which battery technology
has been adopted over the last 15 years has been its
own kind of trade-off. While the societal benefits
offered by batteries are indisputable, the safety community
is still far behind adoption in figuring out
how to mitigate lithium-ion's confounding array of
complex threats. The result is that firefighters and
other safety professionals around the world have been
forced to adjust their strategies on the fly, leading to a
sometimes dangerous game of trial and error.
" The fire service has a massive challenge, " said
Dalan Zartman, a firefighter and industry consultant,
at a recent gathering of big-city fire chiefs at
the annual Urban Fire Forum, held at NFPA headquarters
in September. " If you look at dashcam
footage, there are many cases where firefighters
" How do we rethink the fire risk
potential for all these different
occupancies, given that this
portable ignition source is
carried around by everyone
and could end up anywhere? "
are waiting sometimes 7 or 8 minutes before they
engage a vehicle fire because they are putting in so
much energy and effort just trying to figure out if
this is an electric vehicle and how to approach it. "
Fire protection engineers and risk consultants
across multiple industries have had their own struggles
with the technology, and the challenges are only
growing as batteries become bigger and more powerful
and spread to more occupancies and uses.
" Even though it's the exact same hazard, the potential
consequences can be very different depending
on the specific environment and scenario, " Hutchison
said. " Changing one variable affects so much
about the protection recommendations. There isn't
a one-size-fits-all solution that's going to work. "
24 | NFPA JOURNAL * WINTER 2024
Perhaps no other technology is associated with
such a confounding variety of hazards in one package.
When damaged, lithium-ion batteries don't
just burn-they can go into thermal runaway, an
unstoppable chemical reaction where cells heat rapidly
and begin to spew toxic and flammable gases.
These gases can cause unpredictable explosions that
shoot flaming debris like buckshot out of the barrel
of a gun. The fires that batteries produce burn with
extraordinary heat that can melt through metal storage
containers. A burning battery can appear to be
extinguished, only to reignite like a trick birthday
candle days or weeks later. Unspent energy stranded
in damaged battery cells presents electrocution
risks to responders and makes cleanup tedious and
expensive. Recent evidence also suggests that these
incidents produce a unique combination of chemicals
and heavy metals that could be harmful to humans
and the environment.
Designing strategies to handle this spectrum of
risks would be simpler if batteries were found only
in specific locations or situations, like many other
toxic chemicals or fuels. But the opposite is true with
lithium-ion batteries: they are literally everywhere
and used in a long and growing list of applications.
Battery-powered consumer products-from toys and
lawnmowers to e-bikes, toothbrushes, and tablet
computers-fill homes and high-rise apartments, are
stacked high in warehouses, and fill container ships
traveling the high seas. Powerful batteries hurtle
down the world's roadways powering buses, trucks,
and cars. Batteries power robots that move inventory
around factories, as well as the tools scattered across
construction sites and the medical devices commonly
found in hospitals and senior living facilities. Increasingly,
discarded lithium-ion batteries are buried
among the trash at waste and recycling facilities.
This combination of ubiquity and risk has no
modern precedent. " You're not likely to see many
places or industries where you can prohibit the
lithium-ion battery, " said Brian Meacham, a fire protection
engineer and risk management consultant.
" It's more about how we can make the technology
safer overall from the perspective of fire ignition
and the production of toxic products. And how do
we rethink the fire risk potential for all these different
occupancies, given that this portable ignition
source is carried around by everyone and could end
up anywhere? "
By all accounts, this lithium-ion inundation
will continue to accelerate. According to the strategy
consulting firm McKinsey & Company, global
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