Battery Fires

[Bmyers]

We had a humidify catch fire in the middle of the night. Thankfully, me being overly paranoid we have smoke detectors everywhere in the house and the one in our bedroom went off, scared me. Took me a minute to realize what was going on, smoke pouring out of the humidify. Grabbed the bottle of water next to my bed and tossed it on the fire, followed by a couple more cups of water (yes should of used the fire extinguisher wasn't awake enough and thinking at the time).

After this, I became paranoid about leaving things plugged in and try to unplug stuff when not in use.

So, I will preach to anyone that listens that smoke detectors serve two very important purposes. They can save you life if a fire is starting and they can let you know when your wife is about done cooking.

 

[fried1765]

Battery fire burned my Scag Tiger Cub to the ground. Good thing I had it parked outside a storage building at the time.

I was walking the dog one afternoon, went down by my shop area and was shocked to see it fully on fire! I always fill the fuel tanks after each mowing....so it had 10 gallons of gas on board to boot!

Tried putting it out with a garden hose....but the fuel tanks were involved by then. Nothing to do but back off and watch it burn.

View attachment 129013 View attachment 129014

Ouch!
Sure hope I don't loose my SCAG like that.

 

[mikester]

and to stir the pot a little further....

story: small fender bender in the Walmart parking lot with a Ford F150 Lightning would have normally cost less than a couple thousand $'s if an ICE but over 40k as battery pac may have been compromised. no way to check for sure as battery is a sealed unit.... needs to be replaced for liability reasons.

can you imagine what is going to happen about insurance costs for elec. vehicles once the insurance companies finally catch up to actually rating them based on true cost of repairs??

You don't need an EV for stupid expensive repairs

 

[Sidekick]

You don't need an EV for stupid expensive repairs

I recently saw a news clip where a person with an EV ran over something while traveling down a highway that bounced up and put a dent in the bottom of the car. It was totaled because the bottom of the car is the battery pack and it needs to be replaced if dented. Would have cost more to replace the battery then buy a replacement vehicle. Apparently EV's sit lower then ice vehicles that causes many battery issues like this.

My dealer has a $27000,00 Stihl EV zero turn in his showroom now. Can't imagine trying to insure that.

 

[Fordtech86]

You don't need an EV for stupid expensive repairs

I didn’t make it very far in that video, but that dude is screwing people if it is 5600 for that repair.

edit: I will agree with you on your point though of it not being just ev though

 

[GreensvilleJay]

Actually if you listen long enough ,what he says is true.....
Water got in, corroded the wiring and connectors took out the 'taillight' and shutdown the CAN network

plastic case is $1400
backup sensor another 500
2-3 cable harnesses a few hundred
so about 2800 per side

welcome to the New world.
neighbour ha his right front new F150 headlight assy 'Gooped' back together as the EMPTY shell lists for $1500 CDN..
Nissan wheel well moulding (2# ? of plastic)...list for $532 CDN !

 

[Fordtech86]

I understand the problem in the video, I’ve seen it more then once

 

[Sidekick]

Actually if you listen long enough ,what he says is true.....
Water got in, corroded the wiring and connectors took out the 'taillight' and shutdown the CAN network

plastic case is $1400
backup sensor another 500
2-3 cable harnesses a few hundred
so about 2800 per side

welcome to the New world.
neighbour ha his right front new F150 headlight assy 'Gooped' back together as the EMPTY shell lists for $1500 CDN..
Nissan wheel well moulding (2# ? of plastic)...list for $532 CDN !

Actually LED taillights are right up with catalytic converters on the most stolen part of a vehicle. I have seen a bunch of posts over on the Ranger forum showing how they pop the tailgate lock by driving a screwdriver through the thin metal and make off with the lights in seconds.

 

[Fordtech86]

Just wait until your connected vehicle gets bricked in your driveway from a bad OTA update and you have to pay for 20+ hours of programming to get it fixed .

 

[DaveFromMi]

My brother had a not so sharp guy living with him for a while. He worked as a carpenter. Apparently, he charged his drill behind an antique couch that my parents had restored about 30 years ago. The couch cushions were restuffed with duck feathers. Anyway, it caught fire. He and my brother managed to get the couch out of the house on the front porch and soaked it with a garden hose. The fire reignited on the front porch and melted the soffits above the porch. They then managed to pull it out in the yard. The living room looked like a chicken house with feathers everywhere.

 

[lugbolt]

Ouch!
Sure hope I don't loose my SCAG like that.

We did Scag for a while. Their wiring is TERRIBLE.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

re: The fire reignited on the front porch and melted the soffits above the porch.

sigh.... too dang lazy to carry it to the roadside or at least the yard, far ,far AWAY from the house ?
even IF it was going to be reused, it'd need to be stripped down to the frame.

 

[D2Cat]

Lithium-Ion battery storage bldg. on fire in Calif. on 5/24. (But it's not newsworthy by MSM)

San Diego Firefighters have flown in experts to the Otay Mesa Battery Storage site to study the fire because they don't know how to extinguish it. The fire has already consumed 5 million gallons of water, and firefighters estimate it will take an additional 7-10 days to control,…

 

[DustyRusty]

They haven't tried to foam it. Most likely the foam is known to cause cancer in California, and the manufacturer won't allow it to be shipped to California because of liability. Foam removes the oxygen from the fire, and smothers it.
I am sure OTT aviation experts will have something to counter this statement.

 

[mikester]

Just wait until your connected vehicle gets bricked in your driveway from a bad OTA update and you have to pay for 20+ hours of programming to get it fixed .

But that's a feature! Buddy keeps trying to tell me his Tesla never needs to go to the shop because he gets all "updates" free over-the-air. LMAO. I guess soon he will think nothing of throwing a new car away because of a bad update...just like his cell phone

 

[WFM]

Another battery fire here at a large business that made manufactured homes and sheds.
The cordless tool battery's charging overnight started the fire. Burned the place flat.
I saw a fire cheif throw out a crazy number of the news. He said it takes 300- 500 gallons of water to put out a combustion engine car fire. A electric car fire takes 3000- 5000 gallons of water to extinguish.

 

[Sidekick]

Fire burns for five days at huge lithium-ion energy storage facility | Recharge

Lithium-ion battery fires are rare but extremely hard to put out and have blackened image of key clean energy technology

www.rechargenews.com

They keep building bigger banks and the fires are becoming harder to extinguish with dangerous fumes.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

re: The cordless tool battery's charging overnight started the fire.

I see this statement often and wonder HOW did 'they' determine the fire started because the battery WAS being recharged ? Just because the battery is sitting in the charger doesn't mean it IS being recharged.

 

[WFM]

So if I put my battery on the charger to charge it. I'm assuming it's being re-charged unless I stupidly didn't plug in the charger. I guess you mean the battery on the charger gets to full charge status , then of course it's not "being" charged.
At the manufactured homes place I guess the fire Marshal could tell where it started and employees knew what was in that area.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

Unlike the good old days of a charger forcing 1/10C into a nicad pack, today's batteries and charges need to be 'smart'.
Most if not all li-ion battery packs have internal BMS ( Battery Management System). A microcomputer that analyzes each individual cell and charges it appropriately, then disconnects from it when charged. If a cell is faulty, it flags its and the pack 'fails'. Some chargers bases look for an ID in the battery pack , so you can't recharge a Dewalt pack from a Ryobi charger base. Smarter units will record # of charges, type of charge given,voltage and current capacity.

It's highly unlikely the base charger causes the fires. Li-ion batteries are well known to 'selfignite'. For years laptops were known to do this.
In the picture in post #30, the burn starts 3" from the floor, so bottom of the battery and not the 'guts' of the charger. Would need to see make/model of unit to confirm.