Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, everyone. I'm Greg Harton, the editorial page editor of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette. Today we're talking about electric vehicles and in particular, the challenges that they present for firefighters in our community. That's coming up on today's Know the news podcast.
My guest today is Tom Jenkins, who retired last year as the fire chief in Rogers after 15 years on that job. Today he works for the Underwriters Laboratories Fire Safety Research Institute. Tom, thanks for joining us today.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Well, it's an honor to be here.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: Tell me a little bit about the new focus at the fire Safety Research Institute. After lengthy career in firefighting, you've kind of shifted gears, maybe.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: I like to think of it as I went from working from one fire department to working for 27,000 of them across the country now. But the fire Safety Research Institute does a lot of things. There's research engineers working every day on fire problems across the country, whether it's trying to understand the wildland urban interface and kind of like what happened in Maui last summer to lithium ion battery fires. And I'm working on a project associated with information and data collection from our fire departments across the country.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: Okay. Well, obviously, you know, and now our readers will know that the reason I wanted to talk to you today was about the lithium ion batteries, predominantly because of the electric vehicles that we increasingly see in our communities.
They are, you know, a small percentage of vehicles now, but they're, they're growing. And tell me, you know, first, I guess maybe we should put this into perspective. I mean, there's, they are just one or 2% of all the cars on the road.
But tell me a little bit about how vehicles, how vehicle accidents and fires involving electric vehicles really are different than the same thing involving the gas or diesel powered vehicles.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: Absolutely.
Pardon me. It's probably important to note that it's really not just vehicles that we're concerned about. We're concerned about vehicles, for sure, because of the size. But you're also talking about a multitude of handheld consumer devices that are powered by lithium ion batteries, mobility, e bikes, scooters. And so the risk is more than just automobiles. Automobiles present, you know, a large fuel source and some complexity because, you know, with, with hydrocarbons, internal combustion engine vehicles, they caught fire from time to time. And then the nice thing was we had over 100 or so years developed strategies and tactics to quickly suppress those fires, whether that was using water, using foam. And what is different with lithium ion battery fires is we're still gaining some understanding as to the best suppression strategy. But one of the concerns is they take an inordinate amount of water, water often in excess of the quantity of water carried on fire apparatus. And so sometimes it can be a strategy of letting, if the battery is involved, letting the vehicle burn, that you protect it from spreading to anything else. And so it's simultaneously an effort to better understand the best way to suppress these fires and also a shift in tactics for our, our firefighters.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: So lithium ion batteries are.
I hesitate to even use this example, but I think most people are kind of familiar with the nuclear reaction in a power plant or something, and that that's a controlled sort of reaction that has been set off. Lithium ion batteries aren't that different. I mean, obviously, they're not going to be a big mushroom cloud or anything, but they're. And power plants aren't either. But the.
But it's essentially a chemical reaction happening in there. And when they become overheated, for whatever reason, from external reasons and all of that, it's this chemical reaction that's the real problem, isn't it?
[00:04:53] Speaker B: Yeah, it's thermal runaway is the definition that we often. The term that we often use. And, yes, and when they go into thermal runaway, the battery chemistry is such that they're just difficult to extinguish. They're difficult to extinguish not only because you need to typically use more water, but it's also the manner in which batteries are normally affixed to vehicles. They're just difficult for us to physically get the water on the area that is on fire. And so there's some variables stacked against us. And that's why you find departments in northwest Arkansas that are beginning to look at their training and look at their tactics and equipment and adapt accordingly. It's really how local public safety should work, is understanding the risk. And now, I think Minton county, by the time I left the city of Rogers, had the most electric vehicles in the state. And as you mentioned, it'll continue to grow. And so this is the time to understand the problem and to craft some solutions.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: So just ask a guy that's kind of studied this quite a bit. You know, you've got people who are fans of electric vehicles and people who think it's, you know, that they're. They're not the be all, end all.
I mean, do you. I mean, are they inherently any more dangerous than a gas or electric powered, or are they less dangerous or about the same?
[00:06:20] Speaker B: Well, I don't know. You know, I've not seen any data, but what it would tell me is that, in my experience, I've never attended a fire that was an electric vehicle, but I've been at plenty that were internal combustion engines. And the nature of gasoline and diesel, it's flammable. So putting it into vehicles and smoking a cigarette, you have inherently just more opportunity for problems with internal combustion engines and fire.
And so what I would suspect is that if you looked at them apples to apples, controlling for the quantity of internal combustion engines that are on the road to electric, I think you would find that electric is likely safer. But when electric vehicles catch fire, the conventional tactics that we've used for a long time now aren't necessarily going to work. And that's the real problem as I saw it as a fire chief.
[00:07:22] Speaker A: And so the chemistry that's happening there, and I'm in dangerous territory when I start talking science, but when it overheats and kind of sets off this chain reaction, essentially, that's going to continue until you've cooled down through some external force, which sounds like it's water, until you cool down the battery. Is that right?
[00:07:47] Speaker B: Yes. I mean, you just have to get enough quantity of water on a surface area that's involved to limit it from spreading to the other cells within the battery. And an electric vehicle, if it was to catch fire and it did not involve the battery, for instance, is a normal car fire. We're able to use tactics and put it out. No big deal.
It's when it begins to impact the battery that things may shift.
You know, there's documented that you have some departments that have used 10,000 gallons of water sometimes to extinguish these fires that are often prone to rekindling and reignition if they're not suppressed completely. And that's where you begin to question whether or not the best thing to do is simply to let it burn. And that's just, as you can understand as a consumer of fire department services, like, that's not what you expect your fire department to do.
[00:08:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I usually don't see firefighters just standing around letting something burn.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: That's a bad day.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right.
You don't want to see that. But I can understand where that might be the strategy.
Well, I tell you what, we're going to take just a quick break. The reason we're talking about this today is because Tom Sissom, one of our reporters, has a story coming out this weekend about the efforts of local firefighters to prepare for electric vehicle and lithium ion battery fires. So make sure to check out our newspaper editions this weekend to find Tom's story. But I'll be back in just a minute with more with Tom Jenkins.
[00:09:30] Speaker C: If you're enjoying this podcast, consider a newspaper subscription to the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette or the River Valley Democrat Gazette. We have a special offer for our podcast listeners, so visit nWA online.com nwapodcast to get started, you can also click the subscribe button on our websites, nWA online.com and river valleydemocratgazette.com. or call us at 479-684-5509 and be sure to say that you're a podcast listener. Now back to the show.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: We're back with Tom Jenkins, former Rogers fire chief. And you mentioned, I think, wisely, that this is not just an electric vehicle issue, but lithium ion batteries are everywhere. I'll tell a quick story. Just about two weeks ago, I was helping a lady out that had communicated to me that she had a dead battery, and I had bought me one of these little power packs that have lithium ion battery in them that you can keep in your car, and they've got the clips for the battery on them, and it's essentially a jumper system without having to hook it to another car.
Well, I now know that she.
It wasn't her battery's problem.
It was some other issue. But I put that on there, and within about probably a second and a half, that thing exploded. I mean, it just. Cause it was getting. It was getting juice from the engine or from the. I mean, the engine wasn't on, so I guess from the battery, it was putting out juice, and just, it set off that reaction. And I'm telling you, it certainly scared me. And that thing lit up and started smoking like crazy.
And I just had never expected that that would be a potential outcome. And thank goodness none of us were holding it in our hands or anything like that. I had set it down. So, yeah, these things can get out of hand very quickly.
You know, what. What do consumers need to know about this, as far as, like, if. If they're in a traffic accident or if they're using one of these other devices where something like that happens, what should they be doing?
[00:11:53] Speaker B: Well, when the batteries are protected and they're not damaged and they're original from a manufacturer, they're not, you know, bought as, you know, some third party outfit from across the globe, generally, they're safe. What people oftentimes have to do, though, is exercise. Some common sense that if they're going to use batteries and the battery is behaving in a way that makes them nervous, especially if it's smoking, it's extremely hot that's an indication that something's not right. And you don't want these batteries. If they're behaving in a way that's abnormal, you don't want them in an area that's that if something bad happens that goes into thermal runaway, catches fire, you don't want it to spread. And so around the home, whether it's your e bike, whether it's a drill or some other device, if the battery is damaged and it's bubbling or it's expanding in its package, I think those are signs that most people would pretty quickly recognize is not normal. And when you see something that is not normal with a lithium ion battery pack, well, then don't treat it normally. Treat it as if maybe something bad will happen. And don't go store it inside your home, in your garage.
Isolate it, contact the manufacturer, call the fire department. If it's behaving in a way that makes you nervous, that's what we're there for.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: So, you know, I don't want you to necessarily be the spokesman for all battery manufacturers, but the, you know, you hear these kind of horror stories about, you know, people charging their phones and having them laying there in bed with them or something like that, you know, and an explosion happening, you know, I mean, sometimes this can just happen through the charging process if the battery has a flaw in it, is that right?
[00:13:58] Speaker B: Sure. I mean, there's a whole host of components that can go into a contribution of variables that may cause a problem. You can have a damaged battery that you may not be aware of. I mean, I know of no people that don't from time to time, drop their phone. But phones aren't necessarily a lot of the focus.
You know, you see issues with e mobility devices. The city of New York in particular has had more than a few fires related to e bikes and scooters.
Certainly around the home, I think, of my own home, and the electric drills and tools that I have, they suffer some wear and tear from now and again. So I'm always a little careful after I get done with the project to make sure that those batteries look good. And it's just not business as usual out there, because it's also how they're charged.
You misplace the charging stand, you buy a real cheap one online, turns out that cheap one maybe isn't built or constructed the way it needs to be to charge that battery. Even though everything fits, people just need to not be, you know, under the assumption that batteries are always safe, that batteries, like anything else out there, when when it's not treated right, when it's not used correctly, when it's not maintained in a way that, you know, it was designed to be maintained or charged, you know, sometimes bad things happen, and that's where we want to make sure people adhere to, you know, some of those good standard practices to keep them and their family safe.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: So this may be the world's simplest question. I don't know. But the. I mean, once a battery is charged, like on an e bike or a drill or anything like that, should you unplug them?
[00:15:56] Speaker B: You know, it's really what the manufacturer says.
And because battery, I would always be hesitant to say, you know, when we have a word like always, it's hard to know whether that's always a good idea or a bad idea. But what I encourage people to do is not to assume that they understand everything there is about batteries because they've used them all their life. That battery chemistry has changed. We have plenty of documented evidence of when things go wrong, they can go wrong pretty quick.
And so you just have to be a little bit more vigilant.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Actually read the instructions instead of just tossing them to the side. Is that what you're saying?
[00:16:40] Speaker B: You said it.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: You said it.
Okay, just as we wrap up, what should the average person do if they, you know, if they come across, let's just say a traffic accident involving an electric vehicle and the firefighters are on their way, but they're not quite there yet? You know, we've always seen, you know, scenarios where maybe a bystanders actions are what helped to save somebody or to keep them from more injury.
I mean, what are, what are the risks involved for them in terms of stepping up and trying to help out when there's an electric vehicle involved in an accident?
[00:17:25] Speaker B: Well, in general, nobody's building an electric vehicle knowingly unsafe. I mean, these cars are some of the. The safest out there.
They're dividends of technology and research. And so I don't know that interventions on day to day traffic accidents really need to change. I would tell your listeners and your viewers that if they see an accident, they recognize that it involves an electric vehicle. The most important thing they can do is keep the quantity of injured people to a minimum. And what always used to astound me as fire chief is that we would see just an inordinate number of people that would want to stop and help, and that's great. That says something about northwest Arkansas and the humanity of people here. But the best place for firefighters and civilians alike, probably, to get hurt is out there in traffic. And so unless somebody's life is clearly in danger and unless there's an obvious opportunity to intervene and save a life, call 911 and let the fire department, ambulance service and law enforcement do their job, that what we don't want are people pulling other people out of electric vehicles that probably aren't going to catch fire most times. Now, if there is that one in 1001 in a million chance that somebody can intervene, then they have to weigh the risk and for what may be the benefit of their intervention. But most importantly, we want to see injuries and fatalities reduced. And when it comes to traffic, that means keeping bystanders out of the roadway whenever possible.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: Okay. Some of those plain old common sense. That's always been, always been true, I guess. Yeah, very much so. Have we overlooked anything we ought to talk about?
[00:19:21] Speaker B: You know, I don't think so. I think that what is, you know, what's interesting is that you see fire departments and what I felt as a fire chief, you see fire departments understanding risk in their communities and adapting tools and techniques and training to meet that risk. And so I think for taxpayers that are tuning in and reading the story, listening to us, I think that's evidence that you have your region's fire departments paying attention to what's going on and being ahead of the curve so that if a fire was to occur in an electric vehicle in a parking garage where it can quickly spread to other vehicles, causing a lot of really bad days, that the fire department may have an opportunity to limit it to where it started.
And that's how it should work.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: And just like all the rest of us, you guys are, or firefighters in general, are just constantly kind of learning on the fly and training and trying to stay on top of these things.
Tom Jenkins, I really appreciate your time today. It's been good time spent and wish you well in your new pursuits.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: I appreciate that. Good to visit with you.
[00:20:34] Speaker A: All right. And we'll be back in just a moment with more details about what's coming up this weekend in the northwest. Arkansas Democrat Gazette stay on top of.
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[00:21:26] Speaker A: Here's a quick look at stories you can expect to see this weekend in the Democrat Gazette as we celebrate Memorial Day. Our reporter Tom Sissom looks at the work local fire departments are doing to be prepared for the challenges presented by batteries like those in electric vehicles we just talked with Tom Jenkins about. Tracy Neal will tell us about how northwest Arkansas judges are officially reacting to a Supreme Court ruling that attorneys may carry firearms into courthouses. Stacy Ryburn in Fayetteville tells us about the city's work to figure out what kind of pool or aquatic facility should replace the 97 year old Wilson park pool. The city is looking for more. More broadly, they're looking at water based activities for residents and what residents would like to see in the future. Ron Wood tells us about a key public input meeting coming up in Salem Springs on the potential designation of us 412 in Springdale west into Oklahoma as an interstate highway.
Ron also writes about law enforcement concerns about large groups of young people taking over private parking lots or even sections of public streets to do tricks with their souped up vehicles. These illegal gatherings have migrated here from the west coast, where they're very popular among different groups, and it's requiring more aggressive enforcement by policing agencies from the river Valley. Sadie Lucicero writes about expanded efforts to create calming rooms to help students go through their going through mental health situations where they need just take a little bit of a break.
Sadie also will give us a preview of the old Fort rodeo days. And in this Sunday's profile section, we've got an interview with Marcia Bimco, who is executive producer of the PBS program Antiques Roadshow, which recently brought its appraisers into Bentonville. Bimco talks about what goes into making the show and why it still resonates with people after so many years on the air.
In our what's up section, Becca Martin Brown takes us inside the preparations for the upcoming performance of rent at Arkansas Public Theater in Rogers. All of that and more will be in the editions of the Democrat Gazette in the days ahead as our nation marks Memorial Day and remembers all those who have lost their lives in military service to our nation.
That's it for us. I hope Memorial Day is meaningful and safe for you. We'll visit with you next time on the know the news podcast. So long, everyone.
