State fire specialist warns of lithium-ion risks, recommends planning and updated codes for battery energy storage
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Summary
A New York fire protection specialist told Greene County officials that lithium-ion battery incidents can release toxic gases and spread by thermal runaway; industry practice often focuses on containment, monitoring and allowing some systems to burn while protecting surrounding modules, and updated NFPA/UL standards are improving safety.
Victor Graves, a fire protection specialist with New York's Office of Fire Prevention and Control, told Greene County officials that lithium-ion battery emergencies pose distinct risks and require updated procedures and planning.
"When a lithium-ion battery cell goes in the thermal runaway, it produces a large amount of very toxic, very flammable gas," Graves said. He described how cells can vaporize electrolytes, generate combustible gases and propagate failure from cell to cell inside a rack. Based on recent incident experience, Graves said the hazardous atmosphere usually remains close to the failing module and often dissipates quickly once outside the enclosure.
Drawing on regional incident response work in Jefferson County and Warwick, Graves said that in many BESS incidents the fire service's primary objective is to prevent propagation to adjacent modules. "There is nothing that the fire service can do to stop a cell from continuing to fail once it's going in a thermal runaway," he said. "What our goal is is to use water to stop the propagation or the cell-to-cell spread."
Graves also described current industry and code changes: NFPA 855 and newer UL testing standards now require more testing and documentation from submodules to full-scale units. He said larger sites (above certain megawatt thresholds) must provide response guides to the Office of Fire Prevention and Control, and that many newer systems include remote monitoring and battery-management systems that can identify failing cells and shut down sites remotely.
On tactics, Graves said incident experience has shifted in some places from aggressive suppression to containment and controlled burn: newer systems and safety features often allow operators and firefighters to manage incidents without prolonged suppression efforts. He noted that runoff testing at some incidents showed no detectable contaminants in tested water or soil samples, but cautioned that data remain limited and that testing protocols and background baselines complicate attribution.
Graves recommended local planning measures including strong communication links between planners and operators, site-specific water-collection systems for firefighting runoff, and clearer public education on safe disposal of damaged batteries. He also said the lack of inexpensive, widely available disposal options for damaged batteries is an unresolved policy issue: "Who's paying for?" he asked, urging manufacturers, insurers and politicians to help fund solutions.
Greene County officials asked about local reporting and monitoring; Graves said the state recently upgraded fire-reporting software to capture lithium-ion events and is building incident data but that many smaller events remain unreported.
The presentation prompted discussion about zoning, local regulatory tools, and whether communities should accept BESS projects; Graves said local planning boards and town zoning (not the legislature) typically control siting and can impose additional conditions such as water-storage or monitoring requirements.
Graves offered to share guidance documents and training materials with county staff; no final regulatory action was taken at the meeting.
