March 2025 ASSP Technical Meeting – Lithium Batteries in your community – What you need to know

Topic: Lithium Batteries in your community – What you need to know

Presentation: Lithium battery use is growing rapidly, along with their use in electric vehicles (EVs). Lithium battery use is expanding at a very rapid pace and affecting our daily lives in both a positive and productive way, however, when there are new technical advances in our lives, the mass production advances will always outpace the safety, health, and environmental impacts.

Some examples of these new products from our history include the use of lead, asbestos, mercury, PFAS, fluoride, talc, tobacco, etc. Most of these examples have an even greater impact when they are involved in an extreme heat (Fire) environment. Lithium batteries are no exception to this impact and are now a part of this list of examples.

About 90% of all power tools sold at the Big Box Stores are now powered by lithium batteries. All cell phones, e-cigarettes, lap top computers, medical devices, bicycles, and EV’s and the list is growing daily. Of these products now using lithium-based batteries, the one that is increasingly posing a serious impact to our firefighters is the use in EVs. The share of electric cars in total sales has increased from around 4% in 2020 to 18% in 2023. EV sales are expected to continue strongly through 2024 and 2025. Over 3 million electric cars were sold in the first quarter of 2024 and about 25% more than in the same period last year. With this high volume of EV sales so has the frequency of EV battery fires.

Most EV fires were from the result of over-charging batteries and vehicle accidents involving physical damage directly to the batteries. The number of new charging locations such as personal home and public charging stations is increasing quickly as well, and the potential fire hazards and locations have not either been addressed, assessed, or communicated to the local fire departments, where these stations exist and have not been addressed in their existing Emergency Action Plans (EAPs).

While there is still much research currently underway on how to fight and control a lithium-based battery fire, and due to the extreme heat and toxic exposure from a lithium-based battery fire, Local fire departments may not be aware of these potential health and safety exposures while responding to a fire event, whether at a home or public EV charging station.

Presenter: Rick Foster, Environmental Healt and Site Safety Professional

Rick Foster began his career with OSHA in 2010, as a Compliance Safety and Health Officer (CSHO), for region 2 (Albany, NY). Rick worked for OSHA as a CSHO in Region 9 for several years before returning to Albany in 2017. Before retiring in 2020, he was the Assistant Area Director for OSHA in Region 2. Rick has over 40 years’ experience as a safety professional, with most of that as Corporate Safety Director for many Fortune 500 Companies. Rick worked as a Health Physicist for the Department of Energy. Rick has also assisted many industrial facilities with their participation in the OSHA Voluntary Protection Program (VPP).