Big Daddy Battery Fire (1 Viewer)

[Nitro Fiend]

 

[stitcherbob]

Did Big Daddy just unintentionally make the argument AGAINST electric drag racing? Obviously the track wasn’t prepared for a fire like that. I wouldn’t want to be the one squirting liquid on that much amperage , and when you shut the electric off on a normal car the fire usually doesn’t get worse. This thing seemed to get hotter the more the batteries were cooled off

 

[z28]

obviously not ready for that

 

[nick name]

Nothing against the track crew, but they did everything wrong. As already noted, you don't put water on an electrical fire - and that's assuming it was the control circuit causing all the smoke. If it had been the battery pack, water is even worse. A runaway lithium-ion battery pack is an out of control exothermic chemical reaction producing huge amounts of heat and molten material. Water will only spread and help to direct more chemicals to the reaction and since there's no combustion the cooling effect of water makes no difference at all.

 

[Von Halen]

None of the "green" morons want to talk about these situations. Can you imagine the danger emergency medical and firemen will be in after the crash of a battery powered vehicle? Race car or street car. What about the average Joe that comes upon an accident on a road, and doesn't take the time to consider the danger he's walking into. He's only thinking about maybe helping a fellow human being. Very dangerous situations.

 

[TSK]

Just curious, what is the best type of extinguisher to use for a lithium-ion battery fire?

 

[flapjack]

Just curious, what is the best type of extinguisher to use for a lithium-ion battery fire?

How Do You Put Out a Lithium-Ion Battery Fire?

Learn how to prevent and extinguish lithium-ion battery fires. Discover safety tips, proper extinguishing methods, and workplace precautions for lithium-ion battery safety.

resources.impactfireservices.com

Looks like ABC or dry chemical fire extinguisher.

 

[Burnnitro1320]

They're lucky they didn't lose their "fire truck".

 

[Ramjet]

Actually Soda and plain old Sand is good for lithium-ion batterie fires just like it is good for Magnesium fires. We always keep a big bucket of sand (and VERY sharp tooling) near the lathe because we found out the hard way the fire extinguisher sitting there made it worse. The real problem here seemes to be that NHRA pobably needs to license the track personnel as much or more than the drivers of these things.

 

[Jim]

None of the "green" morons want to talk about these situations. Can you imagine the danger emergency medical and firemen will be in after the crash of a battery powered vehicle? Race car or street car. What about the average Joe that comes upon an accident on a road, and doesn't take the time to consider the danger he's walking into. He's only thinking about maybe helping a fellow human being. Very dangerous situations.

Gas-powered (or fuel-powered) cars never catch on fire, right? A burning fuel-powered car -- street or race -- is also dangerous for emergency medical crews and firefighters.

 

[Luke Nieuwhof]

None of the "green" morons want to talk about these situations. Can you imagine the danger emergency medical and firemen will be in after the crash of a battery powered vehicle? Race car or street car. What about the average Joe that comes upon an accident on a road, and doesn't take the time to consider the danger he's walking into. He's only thinking about maybe helping a fellow human being. Very dangerous situations.

I'm sure people were saying the exact same thing about internal combustion motors when they first replaced the horse and cart. Just like through every other advance of mankind, we will develop technology to improve safety and move forward.

The amount of pearl-clutching going on in the Facebook comments section about the Don Garlits fire is ridiculous. There's a real confirmation bias problem every time there is an electric vehicle fire. I passed a diesel semi truck torched to the ground the other day on the interstate. If it was electric it would have gone viral, but when it's internal combustion it's not a problem?

 

[Just Paul]

Huh. Over 50 years later and Don is still showing the benefits of the rear engine dragster, even if it’s electric.

 

[Cliff]

We have a lithium battery warehouse here in Phoenix. They started seeing smoke come out of the warehouse, & Phx FD responded. 4 days later, guess what? Yep.... Now I have to wonder if Garlits will keep running the dragster.
Luke, I think a lot of technology needs to be developed for electric cars. Would not wanna own one now. How about hydrogen?

 

[.]

Man, thank you to that guy in the white shirt for helping Don out of the car.

 

[Notch1320]

I've got a good friend of mine who is a Battalion Chief in our local Fire Dept. He tells me that the firefighters are instructed when they have to deal with a fire in an electric car that they ignore the car fire and protect the surroundings area. I've personally seen two electric cars on fire and let me tell you, it's ugly. A Tesla that caught on fire down here burned for over 6 hours until the proper equipment was bought in to put the fire out. I'll stick with gas...

 

[mgty3whlr]

They are going to continue to burn until the batteries discharge.

 

[Custom Body Fan]

None of the "green" morons want to talk about these situations. Can you imagine the danger emergency medical and firemen will be in after the crash of a battery powered vehicle? Race car or street car. What about the average Joe that comes upon an accident on a road, and doesn't take the time to consider the danger he's walking into. He's only thinking about maybe helping a fellow human being. Very dangerous situations.

With thinking like that, we wouldn't have airplanes. Big plane loaded with fuel flying right over someone's house! If the plane goes down people in the house who were just sitting there minding their own business could be killed and the fuel could burn down a whole neighborhood! Very dangerous situation.

 

[Von Halen]

With thinking like that, we wouldn't have airplanes. Big plane loaded with fuel flying right over someone's house! If the plane goes down people in the house who were just sitting there minding their own business could be killed and the fuel could burn down a whole neighborhood! Very dangerous situation.

Yeah, you hear about planes falling out of the sky onto peoples houses, every day.

 

[nick name]

Gas-powered (or fuel-powered) cars never catch on fire, right? A burning fuel-powered car -- street or race -- is also dangerous for emergency medical crews and firefighters.

Absolutely. But the point is that we have a century of experience and knowledge as to how to deal with that sort of fire. As other posters have mentioned, a runaway chemical reaction takes entirely different tactics. I'm not against battery power per se, but I do think that updating the training for anyone who has to deal with them needs a massive acceleration.

For example, I didn't do a frame by frame study of the video but it sure looked like the actual fire & flames didn't start until the first extinguisher was used.

 

[z28]

Absolutely. But the point is that we have a century of experience and knowledge as to how to deal with that sort of fire. As other posters have mentioned, a runaway chemical reaction takes entirely different tactics. I'm not against battery power per se, but I do think that updating the training for anyone who has to deal with them needs a massive acceleration.

For example, I didn't do a frame by frame study of the video but it sure looked like the actual fire & flames didn't start until the first extinguisher was used.

when Hybrids 1st came out there was a lot of training done as well as training before that when Magnesium started being used in engines,etc. There are methods but you have to keep up and have the right equipment. In a lot of cases they do let it burn out and protect surroundings. Here's an example: