New York City’s top fire official has asked the federal government to do more to keep substandard lithium-ion batteries out of the United States and regulate chargers and electric bikes, after hundreds of battery fires and six fatalities in the city in 2022.
Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh penned a letter to the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission thanking the agency for its work in issuing multiple recalls of flawed e-bikes, but urging it to seize more substandard batteries at ports, ban “universal” battery chargers, and push e-bike and scooter companies to make their devices work only with approved batteries.
“The FDNY is on the front lines of this fight against deadly fires involving batteries … and we are grateful for every tool available to help,” Kavanagh wrote.
The fires have posed serious threats to the delivery people using electric bicycles, people using battery-powered devices in houses and apartments and to firefighters themselves. Kavanagh noted that in one incident last year, FDNY firefighters had to use ropes hanging out of the 20th floor of a building to save people trapped by a blaze.
Earlier this month, NBC News reported that the rapidly expanding use of lithium-ion batteries is posing new challenges for firefighters across the country. When the batteries fail or overheat, they release flammable, toxic gases that can spark a fast-spreading fire that is extremely difficult to extinguish.
“The source of the gases that are creating the flames is confined within a cell battery that will not allow water in,” said Ofodike Ezekoye, a fire scientist and a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. “When firefighters are responding to these types of incidents, it takes a lot longer to be able to control the fire because it requires so much more water.”
With the number of fires caused by lithium batteries soaring across the U.S., firefighters and other experts say the training needed to…
Read the full article here
