Hot topic: Nye County gets ahead of lithium-ion battery fires

When a truck carrying large lithium-ion batteries caught fire in California on Interstate 15 in July 2024, it shut down the interstate and stranded motorists for many hours in sweltering desert heat.

Nye County Emergency Management Director Scott Lewis, who also serves as fire chief for Pahrump Valley Fire & Rescue, certainly took note. Lewis said the fire on I-15 was important because lithium-ion batteries are regularly shipped through rural Nye County, and Lewis would learn after the I-15 fire that some of those shipments through the county carry damaged batteries moved from a facility in Southern California to a recycling center in Northern Nevada.

“That is when we started exploring what we were going to do in the event of an emergency like this,” Lewis said. “The I-15 incident highlighted it for us.”

The county and Pahrump Valley Fire & Rescue spoke with fire service vendors and researched what products might help if the water-starved county ever faced a similar blaze. The county ended up purchasing a novel product called F-500 EA — a special encapsulator agent billed by its manufacturer, Hazard Control Technologies, as capable of successfully extinguishing multiple types of fires, including blazes involving lithium-ion batteries.

A demonstration by a vendor sold Nye County on the product.

“White metals, tires, flammable liquids, all those different things were set on fire and within seconds of this application, the fire was extinguished and the smoke color changed to a non-hazardous type,” Lewis said. “The heat reduction was greatly noticed. The ability to control the exposures and extension of the fires was mind-boggling.”

The county bought the product, related trailers and totes in early September.

‘It was a game changer’

And then, just a few days later, on Sept. 17, 2024, two trucks collided on a rural segment of U.S. Highway 95, just after midnight, and the cargo of one of the trucks caught on fire.

The cargo?

Damaged lithium-ion batteries, ablaze in the middle of the highway, popping off like firecrackers.

“Utilizing our task-force type approach and the product, the fire was extinguished in minutes,” Lewis said. “Not only did it extinguish the fire, but it reduced the footprint of the accident by reducing the heat trace almost immediately. Therefore they didn’t have to do major road repairs to get the highway open. They just did a patch over it from some of the initial heat. It was a game changer.”

F-500 is now one of the encapsulator agents currently on the market and being pitched to fire departments across the nation. Hazard Control Technologies said in company handouts provided to Nye County that F-500 works via a molecular water additive that reduces the surface tension of water. This makes water droplets smaller, creating more surface area to absorb heat and better penetrate into the pores of solid fuels.

The use of encapsulator agents in firefighting has become a bit of a hot topic, however. Reddit threads with comments from firefighters abound on the Internet. Some are for and some are skeptical. A Google search for firefighting with encapsulator agents on lithium-ion battery fires turns up videos from across the country, some from rural fire services. Many espouse its benefits.

Some fire departments are still sorting through the product’s usage and applications.

“Presently we have F500 EA in all of our five gallon pump tanks used for small cooking fires,” said Lt. Mike Norman, public information officer for the Cleveland Division of Fire in Ohio, in an email to the Review-Journal.

“The Division is considering a wider investment,” Norman said. “The manufacturer says the product is rated for lithium-ion fires, transformer fires, etc. I don’t believe we have deployed it for those purposes yet. We’re basically at the beginning of our relationship with F500.”

There are questions about whether the effectiveness of encapsulator agents is fully proven by rigorous science.

Studies are ongoing, experts say

Brian O’Connor is a senior engineer at the National Fire Protection Association. He said studies on the best ways to tackle lithium-ion battery fires are ongoing.

For lithium-ion battery fires, O’Connor said the association currently recommends using only water as an extinguishing agent. Sean DeCrane, assistant to the general president for health and safety at the International Association of Firefighters, said the association recommends the same.

“Water,” DeCrane said. “That is the best property that we have. There is not a product out there that has been demonstrated to make water any more effective than it currently is.”

DeCrane said there is a lot of research on the topic.

“The challenge that we have right now is that there are no product standards to evaluate the multiple products that have come to market that claim they are more effective than water,” DeCrane said.

The Clark County Fire Department said this past week that lots of water for lithium-ion battery fires is, in their view, the best approach at the present time.

“While there are a number of suppression products on the market, testing conducted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has validated that copious amounts of water is still the best way to cool and extinguish lithium battery fires in instances where a suppression strategy is utilized and water is available,” Clark County Public Information Officer Christine Crews said in an emailed statement. “As additional research and testing results become available regarding lithium battery fires, Clark County Fire Department will evaluate its current tactics to ensure a response that meets validated and accepted best practices.”

The Las Vegas Fire Department said in an email every fire is assessed at the scene to determine what the best approach is. The city did not say whether it uses encapsulator agents or is considering it.

“As lithium-based technology becomes more common in everyday devices, the fire service is adapting response strategies to address this emerging hazard,” the city said. “Research from the Underwriters Laboratories Fire Safety Research Institute is helping fire agencies nationwide update operational priorities. Because knowledge in this area of focus is evolving, lithium-ion battery training is ongoing throughout Nevada.”

Debate in firefighting community over use of encapsulator agents

The Las Vegas Fire Department’s Arson Division is trained to identify potential ignition sources and if lithium-ion batteries are found, investigators notify an Incident Commander, who then requests the department’s Hazardous Materials (HazMat) Team to respond. The city said its Hazmat Team assesses batteries to determine if they retain stored energy or are nonreactive. Battery cells that have sustained thermal or physical damage are collected and secured in overpack containers to protect firefighters and the public.

Damaged lithium-ion batteries can spontaneously release toxic gases or reignite with explosive force, so proper handling is essential, the city said. For electric vehicle fires involving batteries, the Hazmat Team follows the same process of evaluating, collecting, and overpacking compromised cells. Since not all battery modules may be accessible or recoverable, the city fire service works closely with local tow companies, which have been briefed on the risks of delayed ignition and proper storage protocols.

Lewis said the effectiveness of F-500 on an electric vehicle fire, in his opinion, will depend on whether the battery is exposed or remains in its rigid casing.

Lewis said he also understands and appreciates the debate over the use of encapsulator agents in the firefighting community. The county recently purchased more of the product in order to make it available on short notice in the county’s communities including Pahrump, Beatty and Tonopah. He credited the Nye County Board of Commissioners for supporting the Fire Department’s efforts in preparing for lithium-ion battery fires.

“I’ve seen it work,” Lewis said of F-500.

Contact Glenn Puit at gpuit@reviewjournal.com.