The solar farm battery fire in Summerside, P.E.I., is now deemed out, but fire experts say what happened there should concern communities far beyond the Island.
The blaze at the Summerside Sunbank is believed to have started on Labour Day, Sept. 7, in a battery bank.
It led to a shelter in place order and a voluntary evacuation notice for nearby residents because of the potential risk from toxic smoke. The city deemed the fire to be out on Monday after two weeks.
Fire and explosion investigation expert Richard Meier said these kinds of fires can last a long time and don’t behave the way most people imagine.
“You can’t really put it out in the traditional sense of you’re starving it of oxygen,” Meier told Mainstreet P.E.I. host Mitch Cormier.
Across Canada, large lithium-ion battery systems are being added to the grid to store renewable energy, including in rural areas and small communities protected by volunteer fire departments, just like Summerside.
The fire in P.E.I.’s second-largest city is now out, but it has raised a bigger national question: are Canadian fire services prepared to handle the long-lasting, difficult battery fires that can come with the clean energy transition?
‘Coming out like a flamethrower’
Meier said large lithium-ion battery fires can be difficult to control because tightly packed cells can keep setting one another off.
“We’re dealing with a fire of lithium-ion batteries in … what’s basically essentially a shipping container. So we’re talking about a lot of large batteries,” he said.
If a battery cell overheats, is damaged or is overcharged, a separator inside can fail, causing a short circuit and a rapid rise in temperature.
That can trigger what’s called thermal runaway — a chain reaction in which one failing cell generates enough heat to ignite or damage the cells around it.
Meier said the batteries also contain a flammable liquid electrolyte.
“It’s similar in consistency to kerosene,” he said. “If you have a battery that goes into thermal runaway, now you’re superheating this flammable material.… It’s basically coming out like a flamethrower.”
And when these batteries break down, they can make their own chemical that behaves like oxygen, meaning firefighters can’t simply smother the fire by cutting off the air, he said.
Instead, Meier said, firefighters may have limited access to the individual cells and have to focus on cooling the batteries enough to stop the chain reaction. That was the approach used during the Summerside fire.
For Paul Maynard, vice-president of the Canadian Volunteer Fire Services Association, Summerside’s ordeal points to a growing challenge across the country.
“We know there have been a number of incidents across the country that involve everything from battery storage facilities to even smaller equipment,” Maynard said, pointing to electric and hybrid vehicles, e‑bikes, scooters and power tools.
The challenge can be particularly significant in rural areas, where departments often rely heavily on volunteers.
“Most of Canada relies on, in our rural areas, volunteers,” he said. “These incidents can be very time consuming and resource heavy.”
Maynard said departments are being asked to handle complex calls of long duration with limited people and equipment.
He also said there are gaps in training and preparation on a national level.
“The technology seems to be evolving faster than what … the public safety system can kind of keep up to,” he said.
Maynard said Canada needs a national strategy for dealing with these fires, covering everything from how sites are marked and identified to common training and tactics.
That would bring together emergency management co-ordinators, firefighters, manufacturers and other stakeholders, he said.
He said fire services also need to understand what is in their communities — from battery storage and solar sites to EV charging stations and residential solar installations — and be equipped and trained accordingly.
“We’re a bit behind the eight ball for sure,” Maynard said.
‘I don’t think the technology is going away’
Meier said physical design changes can also reduce the risk that a failing battery container triggers others nearby.
“If you want to keep it safe as possible, put enough room between these that they’re not sitting next to each other,” he said.
“Just treat it like you would explosives in a depot: you put space between them, you put berms between them so that one doesn’t cause the other to go off.”
Firefighters from across the Maritimes were on the Island recently to complete an intensive week of training on new tactics for combatting fires. CBC News: Compass host Louise Martin sat down with Kevin MacPhail, a deputy chief with the P.E.I. Firefighters Association, to find out what they learned.
Maynard said manufacturers also need to involve firefighters much earlier, not just after their systems are already in the field.
“Manufacturers really have to view firefighters as almost design stakeholders, not simply end users of emergency information,” he said.
At the end of the day, Maynard said, he is not arguing against clean energy.
“I don’t think the technology is going away,” he said. “It’s just going to continue to grow and grow.… So we have to figure out ways to support that.”
