Toronto sets new annual record for lithium-ion battery fires in September
· Toronto Sun
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This is not the kind of record that a city should boast about or take pride in.
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So far this year, Toronto Fire has dealt with a record number of lithium-ion battery-related incidents, reaching 97 with two more fires over the weekend, both of which were related to e-bikes.
There were 91 such lithium-ion battery incidents last year. Last month alone, there were four battery-related fires that erupted over the course of 24 hours.
The Toronto Sun contacted Toronto Fire for a comment on the spike in battery-related blazes, but had not heard back as of Wednesday evening.
Fire officials continue to warn of dangers
They have, however, has been posting on social media about the inherent danger of battery fires, but it seems the messages have gone unnoticed or unheeded to some people.
“Lithium-ion batteries power many everyday devices, but unsafe charging can lead to fires,” the fire service said on X. “(Use) hard surface only— never beds, couches or rugs. Avoid charging unattended or overnight. Unplug when fully charged.”
The two chemical products that can lead to lithium-ion battery fires are graphite and lithium cobalt oxide.
“These fires don’t wait,” the Office of the Ontario Fire Marshall said on X. “They don’t give warnings. They explode, spread and destroy before anyone can react.”
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‘Meltdown’ waiting to happen
In a rechargeable battery, the two substances are kept separate. But when they interact due to misuse, they can cause problems.
When combined, they short-circuit and create a electrical current surge. The discharge generates intense heat that can break down the internal components and trigger a chain reaction known as thermal runaway.
Thermal runaway is a chain reaction caused by an increase in temperature that changes the internal chemistry of the battery, generating more heat. The cycle causes temperatures to spike, resulting in intense fires, explosions and the release of toxic gas.
“I call thermal runaway the meltdown,” Randy Narine, the president of the lithium-ion battery testing company Clean Core Research, told the Toronto Sun. “The battery is having a mental-health crisis is what happens here. When people have their mental breakdown, it is not because one thing happened; sometimes, maybe, the majority of it is a lot of things that happen over a period of time and that builds up to where it melts down and it is the same thing as the battery.
“It can take abuse, but at some point it is going to give way.”
Some of the toxic gases released during an explosion include hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen chloride, carbon monoxide and hydrogen fluoride.
“Every time you see one of these events happening, what you are seeing is a significant amount of smoke and the faster the smoke is moving the closer you are to an explosion,” Narine said. “Sometimes you might see some light haze coming out of it, but that could flip very quickly. That light white haze is a toxic gas that is full of hydrogen cyanide and hydrogen fluoride, which are two of the deadliest things. Hydrogen fluoride is the most dangerous thing to us as humans and there is a significant amount of it put out.”