Is Your Department Ready to Fight EV Fires? With Evan Gammage

Today, we’re talking electric vehicles. If you live in Los Angeles, like I do, you see them every day. Teslas and hybrids are everywhere!

But there are a lot of places where electric vehicles –called EVs—or hybrids still aren’t common.

Problem is, these cars can be really dangerous when you do find one in an MVA.

Time was, we worried about electrical shock. But those were the early days, and the bright orange power cables have pretty well taken care of that.

Now, the worry is thermal runaways. That’s when the lithium-ion battery gets so hot it starts a chain reaction that makes it tough to extinguish.

And a lot of departments aren’t doing specialized training on how to deal with EV fires.

That’s why today we’re talking with Captain Evan Gammage of the Phoenix Arizona Fire Department. They’ve seen massive growth in EVs involved in crashes and have learned to work them differently.