Firefighters use blanket and ‘turtle’ to extinguish EV fire at gas station – Jalopnik

A burning electric car parked at a gas station could have been a disastrous situation. Fortunately, quick-thinking and well-equipped emergency responders in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota were able to quickly bring the fire under control, reports said CBS Newsand prevented the gas station from exploding like the ones in the movies.

There’s no reason to park an electric car at a gas pump instead of a regular parking lot, but someone did it anyway. We don’t know how the fire actually started, but next to a gas pump this is one of the worst possible places for this to happen. The police arrived first on the scene and video shows them using their cruisers to push the smoking SUV, which appears to be a Kia EV6, away from the pumps to avoid this nightmare scenario.

It seems the first cruiser, a Ford Explorer, had trouble pushing it far enough, so a second cruiser finally pushed it to a grassy island away from the pumps. The fire brigade arrived and deployed two special tools. The first was a giant fireproof blanket over the top of the vehicle to cut off the air supply to the fire. This is not always effective, because when batteries burn, their own oxygen is released during the chemical reaction. However, at one Facebook postAccording to the Brooklyn Center Fire Department, the blanket was there to “control the fumes and smoke” rather than smother the fire.

This can help extinguish flames, but the even more important task is preventing thermal flooding. This is a condition in which a faulty cell in the battery shorts out and overheats, then spreads that heat to surrounding cells, causing a chain reaction of failure that is extremely difficult to control once it starts, according to EV FireSafe. By keeping the battery cool with a device like the Turtle, you can prevent the chain reaction from starting, preventing significantly more damage to the vehicle and anything nearby. Firefighters weren’t always sure how to beat EV fires, but they’ve figured it out over time. The Turtle was designed by Jersey City Fire Captain Howard “Buddy” Hayes after he discovered the shortcomings of his department’s existing equipment in fighting EV fires.

With more and more electric vehicles on the road (despite the best efforts of the current administration), it’s good that tools like the Turtle are being developed to combat the unique challenges of EV fires. If a great philosopher once said“Modern problems require modern solutions.”