According to the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA), half of U.S. fire departments are not prepared to deal with an electric-vehicle fire and have no post-crash protocols in place.
Training first responders to safely put out an EV fire is important as the number of EVs increases, and 31 percent of fire departments report they don’t have any kind of specific training for their firefighters to deal with hybrid or electric vehicles,
Putting out different kinds of fires requires different strategies, and a burning gas tank is not the same as burning lithium-ion battery cell pouches. The USFA says EV fires “can exceed 5000 degrees Fahrenheit” and “applying water or foam may cause a violent flareup as the water molecules separate into explosive hydrogen and oxygen gases.”
Read the article at Car and Driver.