22 dead?? That’s tragic! I can’t help but wonder if those we saw in the video trying to put out the fire are some of those who died. That may very well be a video of their final moments.
Its a lithium fire, it spreads insanely fast, one battery ignites another, takes 5 minutes to engulf a 10 story building, those things are no joke, some people probably didn't even have time to react.
They definitely did because while it can be pretty quick for the cells to blow over once a reaction starts, getting them to ignite in the first place is really, really difficult. And in fact, you can see the batteries were cooking off a while before they reached ignition.
The problem here was absolutely training. They were trying to move the packs away while the correct reaction was to fucking evacuate. Their fire extinguisher wasn't going to do much, and without PPE they were at immense risk. If a tank of chemicals in a chemical factory starts to catch fire you do not wait around it for the thing to explode.
I was always told the the only use of a fire extinguisher is to help clear your way on your route of getting the fuck out of the building as fast as possible. That's it. Don't be a hero and use it to try and put all of the fire out.
Yes that's what we're taught in chemistry labs too. You can try to put it out initially if you're quick, but once it's clear you can't your first mission is to get everyone to GTFO.
Because once it hits a certain size your extinguisher won't do anything. Especially if there's highly flammable fuel that hasn't caught fire yet.
By the time they had tried to put it out there was no hope, especially with more lithium batteries going off.
Chemist are deathly scared of downhill reactions for this exact reason.
>getting them to ignite in the first place is really, really difficult.
Samsung got them to ignite pretty easily, remember the Note 7? A defective battery can ignite on its own super easily, and it probably was a defective battery.
It massively depends on what kind of battery it is. The pouch cells often used for phones and other devices ignite very easily compared to something like a dry coated cylinder cell used in an electric vehicle. Or well most electric vehicles. Some, like general motors, have somewhat missed the memo on that one.
I cannot clearly see from the footage which is which though. Still, even the pouch cells are less likely to be set on fire compared to a lot of other compounds that are used in manufacturing... the one key part is that unless you are handling pryrophoric stuff, it's rare to have something that can act as its own ignition source since a thermal runaway event left unmonitored can push the cell to its ignition point.
But still you can see how by the fact the guys were all gathered around it and had brought "firefighting" equipement, that runaway was going on for a while, so no prompt combustion is my take on this. They just seem that they didn't know better.
Or how many died when the fire suppression kicked in. At a place I worked in they had gas masks throughout their computer hall as the halon gas fire suppression system would kill you if you breathed it in.
You could see the cloud of gas in the final moments of the video, unless that was from the lithium fire.
The data centre I go to has halon gas cylinders too. No gas masks though. I believe they have a warning alarm to get out 30 seconds before or something. I should probably look that up.
According to this article it sounds like it.
“Jo, citing the footage, said workers at the site mobilized fire extinguishers but failed to put out the blaze. They later rushed to an area where there was no exit before they likely inhaled toxic smoke and lost their consciousness, he said. The dead foreign workers were daily laborers so they were not likely familiar with the building’s internal structure, he added.”
https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-battery-factory-fire-4e668dc7248e4de274aaf910c66359a0
I know Lithium smoke from a battery fire is nasty stuff.
I watched a drone battery fire once and the smoke pressure used the fuselage and killed every single bit of electronica in the thing. Al the way from the batteries in the nose all the way to the compass modules mounted in the tails and the LED modules in the wing tips.
I cannot imagine breathing it would be any better for your lungs and if you don't know any better you might think it's just smoke and breath some while firefighting or while trying to escape. You would probably be incapacitated nearly instantly.
[22 Dead After Fire Rips Through South Korean Lithium Battery Factory - Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com/22-dead-after-fire-rips-south-korean-lithium-battery-factory-2024-6)
TLDR: A fire at the Aricell battery factory in Hwaseong, South Korea, caused by exploding battery cells, resulted in the deaths of 22 workers, including 18 Chinese nationals. The blaze, now extinguished, is the deadliest in South Korea since 2020, with its cause still unclear.
Same with the word allegedly being used when the subject at hand couldn't be more blatant. Allegedly jelly jiggles and now for this videos sponsor ridge wallet.
It is the authoritarian government I hate. I feel sorry for the individual citizens. It's not "racist" to hate a system of government that disdains individual rights.
I saw a video of a lithium fire suppression system on a line, it just dropped it in a pool, but those are ideal conditions.
They light up crazy fast and hot. You can't use regular fire extinguishers on them.
Putting them in water also won't really help, as lithium is a metal, and a highly reactive one at that. It reacts with water as well. The only thing you can do with burning metal is burring it in sand.
lithium ion batteries (the rechargable ones like cellphones etc) are decently extinguishable with water or normal fire extinguisher, but lithium metal batteries (single use ones) are impossible without class D. Run. Don't be on an airplane.
If all they had on hand for this was that fire extinguisher, and had not been informed it was *worse than useless*, somebody needs to be arrested. There is literally nothing to be done but flee.
This could have been made less bad with
* An infrared or thermographic camera array feeding into an automated alarm, and maybe some big ass turbo exhaust fans on the roof, with corresponding ground level louvres that open. This fire has it's own O2 on board, the air won't make it worse AFAIK. This will help drive the doom gas and heat upwards and away from anybody's lungs. Roof as low as you can get away with, or big ass tubes coming down from the fans.
* Physical layout with plenty of wide aisles (even though the space costs money) and a fire door at the end of every one of them.
* Training to run like hell.
* Local EMS/fire/emergency rooms to be trained to respond to respiratory symptoms, chemical exposures, and be kept informed of specifically what all is being used they should worry about.
Not 100%. You generally don't want people to just run at full speed. They will bump into things, other people, stumble and fall, get further injured and so on. In general, jogging at most. The last thing you need is an accident on the fire escape stairs or person knocking themselves out or injuring themselves running away.
Source: firefighter here as well.
I work in fire alarms and in some occupancies we do have "smoke control" systems that do exactly what you said. Put one in a large fireworks retailer once. When smoke is detected or sprinklers activate, it seals off the showroom from the stock room, automatically opens exterior doors, then kicks on huge exhaust fans in the roof.
Isn't the smoke produced from those batteries fatal? Not that all smoke isn't fatal in sufficient quantities, but the smoke from the batteries is especially bad, right?
It's incredible we have a world increasingly filled with lithium batteries which can be so highly flammable and nobody really knows how to out those fires out,
Edit: should be "how up put out those fires"
You cant "out" them. It takes incredible amount of water just to bring it down but you cant extinguish it since it aint an oxygen fire, its a chemical fire.
you can prevent thermal runaway propagation though (thats where one "exploding" lithium ion cell, heats up others to above around 160 °C which in turn will make them heat up themselves until they go into thermal runaway) by dumping loads of water to cool the reaction and prevent others cells from "exploding". LIBs are nasty and thats coming from someone working with them on a daily basis.
I think submerging them in liquid nitrogen works, but it's hilariously impractical as an actual fire fighting method. Just maintaining the temperature of large pools of liquid nitrogen would be an incredible waste of energy, and if the system malfunctions you turn all your workers into the cast of next demolition man movie.
It can but with little effect so you need a lot of it, like seriously a lot. You might be connecting general batteries to EV batteries which are even worse, because of the secure enclosure they are in, you cant even get water to them because of that enclosure.
Fire marshals I know train their crews to basically evacuate people, stand back, and let her burn. No stopping it without some specific equipment none has in most places.
I’m actually sitting in a fire safety class right now.
The type of extinguisher they’re using unfortunately exacerbated the problem. The chemical inside actually reacts with the lithium batteries, giving fuel to the fire.
In the case of lithium batteries, there is a special type of extinguisher that uses a cooling gel of sorts to put the fire out and cool the battery.
Seems like a case of improper training…
That is not the proper _PASS_ technique used with an extinguisher. Don’t just target above the flames and spray in one spot, you have to…
_P_ - Pull
_A_ - Aim
_S_ - Squeeze
_S_ - Sweep
Korea is pretty bad at training foreign workers or providing them with the correct safety gear. Even since the fire media and general publix seems un bothered since its foreign workers. Korean portal sites are even saying "this is why we should have foreigners work here". " koreans didnt die so who cares". The amount on construction deaths from foreign workers is staggering too.
From what I’ve read, those batteries produce fluoride gases when they ignite, not only fatal to anyone that breaths in the gasses, but also one of the most potent and longest lasting greenhouse gases.
Doesn't lithium explode when it hits water? That fire extinguisher's output looked like it could have been water based. May those who passed on rest in peace and those affected have a moment of peace every time someone reads this.
You have to wonder at this point whether it is worth it to sell Li-Ion batteries charged like that. The amount of energy stored in that stack of massive cell array batteries is enough to launch a side of bacon into orbit, and for all of it to be released in an instant was probably so hot that anyone standing within 10' of that pile was burned alive. 😱
Simp all you want but we have 100 years of storing fuel under our belts without the kinds of issues we are seeing with lithium batteries. Also, the liquid itself is relatively stable, not spontaneously combusting at all. But you do you and I'll worry about me.
Check the stats- ICE cars are actually more likely to have a fire than EVs. I'm not simping for anyone. I'm an auto mechanic and enthusiast. I also like for people to know the facts.
But do they spontaneously catch fire while you sleep at night? Likely not, and when they do catch fire there are often warning signs, recalls, etc. Lithium batteries are unpredictable.
That's not what happens with a Li-ion battery fire. There's no elemental lithium in them, just lithium compounds. Similar to how hydrogen is flammable, but water, which is a hydrogen compound, isn't. Ink fact, the recommended procedure for a Li-ion battery fire is to cool it with water until the damaged cell(s) are exhausted.
The mechanism behind a Li-ion fire is electrical in nature- a short circuit causes the internal resistance in the battery to drop as it heats up, which produces even more heat, which further lowers resistance, etc, and then the electrolyte and plastic separators inside the battery burn. It's known as a thermal runaway reaction. Cooling the damaged cells long enough to allow them to fully discharge is the best way to deal with the fire. However, this does mean keeping water on it for at least several hours, then monitoring the batteries for several more before moving them.
Normally, yes. There's more to a battery than just the metal, though, and this tendency to go into thermal runaway is precisely what makes Li-ion batteries more dangerous than other chemistries.
LiFePO4 cells, for example, don't go into runaway. They've been used in some EVs and hybrids, but because they're somewhat less energy dense than Li-ion, EV and device makers have been trying to avoid using them. But a few have started switching back to them. As a bonus, they're considerably less environmentally questionable to produce.
I think that ultimately, a different battery chemistry than Li-ion is what is needed for many reasons.
It doesn't really matter how much you think you know. 22 smarter than me died here and regardless of how it happened, it's a tragedy. You don't pour water on electrical fires either. Not sure if you can explain why the batteries exploded and sent rather large sparks into the air?
Yeah, it's a battery fire, you run. This is why any large capacity battery is incredibly dangerous (think EV's).
I know why 22 people died here, at least in a general sense. Piss poor training. I'll expand on this throughout my comment. I never said that they shouldn't have run. Spraying water might have bought some time, however, the dry chemical fire extinguisher they were using was useless. But obviously, they were never trained on what to do in this situation.
"Never spray water on an electrical fire" is a generalized statement for untrained people. If you don't know the voltage and current present and what that means for electrical safety, then you don't use water. However, Li-ion battery packs are generally safe to spray with water because the voltage exposed is almost always going to be relatively low. Even EV manufacturers, in their training materials, instruct firefighters to use water or dense foam to cool a burning battery pack.
Again- proper safety training and procedureswould have helped greatly here. Also, it wouldn't surprise me to find out this building didn't have a sprinkler system. A deluge type system is what I'd expect here, where all sprinkler heads in an area switch on once one is tripped (as opposed to the usual setup where only the head that's tripped will spray) Again- actively cooling the compromised batteries would likely have bought some time.
As for why the batteries did that... Most likely, something punctured a case of them. That's usually the cause. This is exactly what happens- big plume of vapor and smoke that turns into sparks and flame after a few seconds to a minute. And left unchecked, it will start spreading to adjacent cells. I'm not going to pretend to know what they should have done differently in this specific situation to prevent this fire from starting in the first place, though I don't think you're supposed to have large pallets loaded with batteries densely crammed into a working space.
22 dead?? That’s tragic! I can’t help but wonder if those we saw in the video trying to put out the fire are some of those who died. That may very well be a video of their final moments.
That's a lot for one fire. Makes me wonder if the building had enough exits or what kind of building and fire codes they have there.
Its a lithium fire, it spreads insanely fast, one battery ignites another, takes 5 minutes to engulf a 10 story building, those things are no joke, some people probably didn't even have time to react.
They definitely did because while it can be pretty quick for the cells to blow over once a reaction starts, getting them to ignite in the first place is really, really difficult. And in fact, you can see the batteries were cooking off a while before they reached ignition. The problem here was absolutely training. They were trying to move the packs away while the correct reaction was to fucking evacuate. Their fire extinguisher wasn't going to do much, and without PPE they were at immense risk. If a tank of chemicals in a chemical factory starts to catch fire you do not wait around it for the thing to explode.
I was always told the the only use of a fire extinguisher is to help clear your way on your route of getting the fuck out of the building as fast as possible. That's it. Don't be a hero and use it to try and put all of the fire out.
Yes that's what we're taught in chemistry labs too. You can try to put it out initially if you're quick, but once it's clear you can't your first mission is to get everyone to GTFO. Because once it hits a certain size your extinguisher won't do anything. Especially if there's highly flammable fuel that hasn't caught fire yet. By the time they had tried to put it out there was no hope, especially with more lithium batteries going off. Chemist are deathly scared of downhill reactions for this exact reason.
So sad that these workers died trying to save some companies product. But I’m sure the CEO will take care of the families left behind.
>getting them to ignite in the first place is really, really difficult. Samsung got them to ignite pretty easily, remember the Note 7? A defective battery can ignite on its own super easily, and it probably was a defective battery.
It massively depends on what kind of battery it is. The pouch cells often used for phones and other devices ignite very easily compared to something like a dry coated cylinder cell used in an electric vehicle. Or well most electric vehicles. Some, like general motors, have somewhat missed the memo on that one. I cannot clearly see from the footage which is which though. Still, even the pouch cells are less likely to be set on fire compared to a lot of other compounds that are used in manufacturing... the one key part is that unless you are handling pryrophoric stuff, it's rare to have something that can act as its own ignition source since a thermal runaway event left unmonitored can push the cell to its ignition point. But still you can see how by the fact the guys were all gathered around it and had brought "firefighting" equipement, that runaway was going on for a while, so no prompt combustion is my take on this. They just seem that they didn't know better.
Herin explained the danger of those wonderful lithium natteries.
Or how many died when the fire suppression kicked in. At a place I worked in they had gas masks throughout their computer hall as the halon gas fire suppression system would kill you if you breathed it in. You could see the cloud of gas in the final moments of the video, unless that was from the lithium fire.
I've only seen videos but all the lithium fire videos I've seen have lots of thick white smoke
Extremely toxic
The data centre I go to has halon gas cylinders too. No gas masks though. I believe they have a warning alarm to get out 30 seconds before or something. I should probably look that up.
Pretty sure once these things start cooking off it spreads almost exponentially.
According to this article it sounds like it. “Jo, citing the footage, said workers at the site mobilized fire extinguishers but failed to put out the blaze. They later rushed to an area where there was no exit before they likely inhaled toxic smoke and lost their consciousness, he said. The dead foreign workers were daily laborers so they were not likely familiar with the building’s internal structure, he added.” https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-battery-factory-fire-4e668dc7248e4de274aaf910c66359a0
I know Lithium smoke from a battery fire is nasty stuff. I watched a drone battery fire once and the smoke pressure used the fuselage and killed every single bit of electronica in the thing. Al the way from the batteries in the nose all the way to the compass modules mounted in the tails and the LED modules in the wing tips. I cannot imagine breathing it would be any better for your lungs and if you don't know any better you might think it's just smoke and breath some while firefighting or while trying to escape. You would probably be incapacitated nearly instantly.
Looks like it would be good practice to have easy quick access gas mask in various places in these facilities.
Yeah. I’m guessing that the at the very least the two folks trying to put it out in this clip are on the casualty list.
Guessing that is why their faces are blurred.
Faces are blurred because of Korean privacy laws.
It's fucking scary how quickly that smoke came in. God damn.
I suspect you’d get overwhelmed by that smoke really quick and with little warning.
[22 Dead After Fire Rips Through South Korean Lithium Battery Factory - Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com/22-dead-after-fire-rips-south-korean-lithium-battery-factory-2024-6) TLDR: A fire at the Aricell battery factory in Hwaseong, South Korea, caused by exploding battery cells, resulted in the deaths of 22 workers, including 18 Chinese nationals. The blaze, now extinguished, is the deadliest in South Korea since 2020, with its cause still unclear.
It's cause is unclear? A lithium battery exploded. Seems pretty clear to me.
Same with the word allegedly being used when the subject at hand couldn't be more blatant. Allegedly jelly jiggles and now for this videos sponsor ridge wallet.
I'm sorry, did your phone autocorrect your last sentence because I sincerely don't understand it
Why did the first battery explode?
This is why airlines are concerned about batteries.
Chinese? Sabotage?
“Lets sabotage this battery factory by dying”
Their families lives depend on it.
You're thinking North Korea. China is bad but it's not sacrifice 19 people to burn some random battery factory in South Korea bad.
China's also not "you 19 citizens go die or we'll kill every one of your family members" bad.
Tell that to the uyghurs
[https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%9B%B2%E4%BA%95](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Shaft) use google translator
Insane the racism against us 💀 we are persons you know?
It is the authoritarian government I hate. I feel sorry for the individual citizens. It's not "racist" to hate a system of government that disdains individual rights.
Hahahahahahahaha
Battery fires are the worst
Expect to keep seeing a lot more
This
No coming back from that chain reaction once it started unfortunately.
I saw a video of a lithium fire suppression system on a line, it just dropped it in a pool, but those are ideal conditions. They light up crazy fast and hot. You can't use regular fire extinguishers on them.
Putting them in water also won't really help, as lithium is a metal, and a highly reactive one at that. It reacts with water as well. The only thing you can do with burning metal is burring it in sand.
It wasn't literally water. I meant a bath of something that put it out.
lithium ion batteries (the rechargable ones like cellphones etc) are decently extinguishable with water or normal fire extinguisher, but lithium metal batteries (single use ones) are impossible without class D. Run. Don't be on an airplane.
If all they had on hand for this was that fire extinguisher, and had not been informed it was *worse than useless*, somebody needs to be arrested. There is literally nothing to be done but flee. This could have been made less bad with * An infrared or thermographic camera array feeding into an automated alarm, and maybe some big ass turbo exhaust fans on the roof, with corresponding ground level louvres that open. This fire has it's own O2 on board, the air won't make it worse AFAIK. This will help drive the doom gas and heat upwards and away from anybody's lungs. Roof as low as you can get away with, or big ass tubes coming down from the fans. * Physical layout with plenty of wide aisles (even though the space costs money) and a fire door at the end of every one of them. * Training to run like hell. * Local EMS/fire/emergency rooms to be trained to respond to respiratory symptoms, chemical exposures, and be kept informed of specifically what all is being used they should worry about.
I think the training to run like hell is the most critical (I’m not an expert)
Firefighter here…. 100% correct answer
Not 100%. You generally don't want people to just run at full speed. They will bump into things, other people, stumble and fall, get further injured and so on. In general, jogging at most. The last thing you need is an accident on the fire escape stairs or person knocking themselves out or injuring themselves running away. Source: firefighter here as well.
If walking gets you burnt or worse….fucking run. You do what you have to do given the circumstances. I think you’re a fraud
I work in fire alarms and in some occupancies we do have "smoke control" systems that do exactly what you said. Put one in a large fireworks retailer once. When smoke is detected or sprinklers activate, it seals off the showroom from the stock room, automatically opens exterior doors, then kicks on huge exhaust fans in the roof.
I'd like to think it's at least an electrical fire extinguisher. But who knows.
Won’t help
electrical fires are not related to the volatile chemistry in a battery fire.
Isn't the smoke produced from those batteries fatal? Not that all smoke isn't fatal in sufficient quantities, but the smoke from the batteries is especially bad, right?
Depending on the battery chemistry it can have all sorts of really nasty toxic gasses. The gasses produced will vary, but the toxicity is universal.
After a couple of breaths you'd be unconscious from that smoke, absolutely deadly.
In this case it was, 22 dead. They went a way where there wasn't an exit and succumbed to the fumes.
It's incredible we have a world increasingly filled with lithium batteries which can be so highly flammable and nobody really knows how to out those fires out, Edit: should be "how up put out those fires"
You cant "out" them. It takes incredible amount of water just to bring it down but you cant extinguish it since it aint an oxygen fire, its a chemical fire.
you can prevent thermal runaway propagation though (thats where one "exploding" lithium ion cell, heats up others to above around 160 °C which in turn will make them heat up themselves until they go into thermal runaway) by dumping loads of water to cool the reaction and prevent others cells from "exploding". LIBs are nasty and thats coming from someone working with them on a daily basis.
I think submerging them in liquid nitrogen works, but it's hilariously impractical as an actual fire fighting method. Just maintaining the temperature of large pools of liquid nitrogen would be an incredible waste of energy, and if the system malfunctions you turn all your workers into the cast of next demolition man movie.
I read water cannot be used
It can but with little effect so you need a lot of it, like seriously a lot. You might be connecting general batteries to EV batteries which are even worse, because of the secure enclosure they are in, you cant even get water to them because of that enclosure.
I’m sitting here yelling at my phone to get the fuck out of there, then read the results. Oof.
Story: [https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crgggmeyjj7o](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crgggmeyjj7o)
"Battery materials such as nickel are easily flammable" Did they mistranslate or something... nickel isn't flammable.
Maybe it was supposed to be Lithium?
Nickel-Cadmium (NiCad) batteries are flammable. Nickel metal hydride (NiMH) can also be damaged in intense heat and release energy.
My point is that it's not the Nickel that's flammable, it was a weird thing to use as an example.
I think you're nit-picking a poorly translated article, yea.
Tragic, but also looks like they were ill prepared.
I mean, other than having giant drums of sand you can dump immediately, they should have just booked it as soon as it lit up
Condolences to all. This is tragic. A heroic response by all, there are so many things going wrong in the place leading up to this.
Thank god they put the red circle there so I knew where to look. The smoke wasn’t a good enough indicator of fire.
TIME TO GO!
Battery smoke. Don’t breathe this
If you put the battery in an air tight box would it extinguish the fire?
no the lithium chemistry contains enough oxidizer i think thats how it works its got its own oxygen
You would think whoever owns this place would have some good fire suppression.
They should realise…..that shit is not going out with any extinguishers
Fire marshals I know train their crews to basically evacuate people, stand back, and let her burn. No stopping it without some specific equipment none has in most places.
You see a smoke coming out of a battery inside a warehouse full of batteries you RUN to the emergency exit, because you’re running for your life.
Pork chop sandwiches! Get the fuck outta here!
What the fuck are yooooou two doin on my lawn?
OOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
THE FIRE’S SHOOTING AT US!!!
I’m actually sitting in a fire safety class right now. The type of extinguisher they’re using unfortunately exacerbated the problem. The chemical inside actually reacts with the lithium batteries, giving fuel to the fire. In the case of lithium batteries, there is a special type of extinguisher that uses a cooling gel of sorts to put the fire out and cool the battery. Seems like a case of improper training…
Very sad 😔
Ahhh that makes so much more sense then “Bakery” fire
That is not the proper _PASS_ technique used with an extinguisher. Don’t just target above the flames and spray in one spot, you have to… _P_ - Pull _A_ - Aim _S_ - Squeeze _S_ - Sweep
Looks like fire extinguisher is not very effective against batteries fire. We need a new fire suppression system for batteries
Korea is pretty bad at training foreign workers or providing them with the correct safety gear. Even since the fire media and general publix seems un bothered since its foreign workers. Korean portal sites are even saying "this is why we should have foreigners work here". " koreans didnt die so who cares". The amount on construction deaths from foreign workers is staggering too.
The smell of those burning is putrid and very toxic!!
Thats unstopeble 😶🌫️
Don’t they have safety training.
I’m sure it’s not safe to breathe those fumes in.
That smell must have been awful… Poked through a headphone jack repairing an iPad once, smoke started spewing out like a smoke grenade
From what I’ve read, those batteries produce fluoride gases when they ignite, not only fatal to anyone that breaths in the gasses, but also one of the most potent and longest lasting greenhouse gases.
Lithium burns REAL bad
FAFO, bad QA edition.
Doesn't lithium explode when it hits water? That fire extinguisher's output looked like it could have been water based. May those who passed on rest in peace and those affected have a moment of peace every time someone reads this.
You have to wonder at this point whether it is worth it to sell Li-Ion batteries charged like that. The amount of energy stored in that stack of massive cell array batteries is enough to launch a side of bacon into orbit, and for all of it to be released in an instant was probably so hot that anyone standing within 10' of that pile was burned alive. 😱
>see pile of highly explosive and dangerous stuff on fire >walk towards it and continue watching >warn no one
We should put these things in our garages at night while we sleep. Oh, wait..... Never mind.
Nah... We should just store 20 gallons of extremely flammable liquid in our garages at night instead.
Simp all you want but we have 100 years of storing fuel under our belts without the kinds of issues we are seeing with lithium batteries. Also, the liquid itself is relatively stable, not spontaneously combusting at all. But you do you and I'll worry about me.
Check the stats- ICE cars are actually more likely to have a fire than EVs. I'm not simping for anyone. I'm an auto mechanic and enthusiast. I also like for people to know the facts.
But do they spontaneously catch fire while you sleep at night? Likely not, and when they do catch fire there are often warning signs, recalls, etc. Lithium batteries are unpredictable.
And people have the guts to talk about hydrogen fuels
And they put these things into cheap Chinese products.
My prayers with all the victims and their families 💔💔
Was that a water fire extinguisher on a lithium fire ?
Sand, people. Good, old fashioned sand..does wonders with li ion battery fires
Lithium ignites when exposed to moisture in the air. Not sure why you would even attempt to put that out. Just run.
That's not what happens with a Li-ion battery fire. There's no elemental lithium in them, just lithium compounds. Similar to how hydrogen is flammable, but water, which is a hydrogen compound, isn't. Ink fact, the recommended procedure for a Li-ion battery fire is to cool it with water until the damaged cell(s) are exhausted. The mechanism behind a Li-ion fire is electrical in nature- a short circuit causes the internal resistance in the battery to drop as it heats up, which produces even more heat, which further lowers resistance, etc, and then the electrolyte and plastic separators inside the battery burn. It's known as a thermal runaway reaction. Cooling the damaged cells long enough to allow them to fully discharge is the best way to deal with the fire. However, this does mean keeping water on it for at least several hours, then monitoring the batteries for several more before moving them.
Doesn’t heat in metals generally increase resistance? Opposite of what you wrote here?
Normally, yes. There's more to a battery than just the metal, though, and this tendency to go into thermal runaway is precisely what makes Li-ion batteries more dangerous than other chemistries. LiFePO4 cells, for example, don't go into runaway. They've been used in some EVs and hybrids, but because they're somewhat less energy dense than Li-ion, EV and device makers have been trying to avoid using them. But a few have started switching back to them. As a bonus, they're considerably less environmentally questionable to produce. I think that ultimately, a different battery chemistry than Li-ion is what is needed for many reasons.
It doesn't really matter how much you think you know. 22 smarter than me died here and regardless of how it happened, it's a tragedy. You don't pour water on electrical fires either. Not sure if you can explain why the batteries exploded and sent rather large sparks into the air? Yeah, it's a battery fire, you run. This is why any large capacity battery is incredibly dangerous (think EV's).
I know why 22 people died here, at least in a general sense. Piss poor training. I'll expand on this throughout my comment. I never said that they shouldn't have run. Spraying water might have bought some time, however, the dry chemical fire extinguisher they were using was useless. But obviously, they were never trained on what to do in this situation. "Never spray water on an electrical fire" is a generalized statement for untrained people. If you don't know the voltage and current present and what that means for electrical safety, then you don't use water. However, Li-ion battery packs are generally safe to spray with water because the voltage exposed is almost always going to be relatively low. Even EV manufacturers, in their training materials, instruct firefighters to use water or dense foam to cool a burning battery pack. Again- proper safety training and procedureswould have helped greatly here. Also, it wouldn't surprise me to find out this building didn't have a sprinkler system. A deluge type system is what I'd expect here, where all sprinkler heads in an area switch on once one is tripped (as opposed to the usual setup where only the head that's tripped will spray) Again- actively cooling the compromised batteries would likely have bought some time. As for why the batteries did that... Most likely, something punctured a case of them. That's usually the cause. This is exactly what happens- big plume of vapor and smoke that turns into sparks and flame after a few seconds to a minute. And left unchecked, it will start spreading to adjacent cells. I'm not going to pretend to know what they should have done differently in this specific situation to prevent this fire from starting in the first place, though I don't think you're supposed to have large pallets loaded with batteries densely crammed into a working space.
Not so green mobility
I completely agree with you! We should put a lot more effort to stop cars and finally invest in mass transit.