(WEEK) – More and more car owners are swapping the petrol pump for the socket.
Rivian is now rolling off electric trucks in Normal.
And the governor wants a million electric cars on the streets in Illinois by 2030.
Electric vehicles are not new, but there are more and more of them, all from different manufacturers, and they are not all created equal.
This is why learning about electric vehicles and training first responders in the event of a fire or other emergency is so important.
Every situation is different for firefighters, and changing technologies can make hard work difficult.
“Firefighters need to understand and know what they’re dealing with,” said Tom Shubert, director of fire programs for the Illinois Fire Service Institute.
Shubert trains firefighters and first aiders in how to use electric vehicles safely in the event of a fire or accident.
“The electrical cables that run through these vehicles, whether it’s an intercity vehicle or just a normal small vehicle, are always a problem and firefighters and first responders must always be aware of the dangers of these vehicles” said Schubert.
According to Shubert, every electric vehicle is different and the batteries can be in different areas of the car. He said there are dangers that they don’t encounter in a normal car.
“Sometimes they have to go into the engine compartment where the fire breaks out in the vehicle, they have to do that with tools. In newer vehicles in the hybrid vehicles, there are concerns about the power cables, care must be taken, you cannot puncture them or harm them in any way. They can shock the firefighters or anyone who works around them, “Shubert said.
Once it looks like the fire has gone out, the batteries can continue to heat up, Shubert said.
“You just put out the fire, put it out on the tow truck and take it to the junkyard, and it’s there for 2-3 hours, and those batteries keep heating up. You can re-ignite the car and start another fire,” said Schubert.
A normal car fire takes a few hundred liters of water to put out the fire. It can take thousands for an electric vehicle.
With more than 30 different electric car manufacturers, we are seeing more electric vehicles on the roads.
That is why Schubert recommends this type of training.
According to the Secretary of State, there are currently 34,363 registered electric vehicles on the roads in Illinois.
Governor Pritzker wants the number to rise to one million by 2030.
“They all have their own unique quarks, I think, that are used to run all of the electrical wiring in the vehicle. Fire fighters have to keep that in mind, ”said Mick Humer, head of the normal fire department.
Humer said his firefighters have been training at Champaign for the past few years.
With electric vehicle production going on in Rivian in Normal, he said firefighters need more hands-on training.
“We spoke to (Rivian) about this intense training session, but we’re not quite there yet,” said Humer.
One day after that interview with Chief Humer, on October 26th, Rivian workers had to briefly evacuate due to a battery part fire.
Chief Humer said it took about 20 minutes to clear and it took a considerable amount of water.
25 News reached out to about eight fire departments in our area to see where they are with their electric vehicle training – the majority of them said they had training but needed more.
Chief Humer said the plan is to do some hands-on training at Rivian over the next few months – training they want to share with other departments in the area.
“This is just not a normal situation that we want people to be trained in,” he said.
In Bloomington, Fire Department Public Information Officer Eric Davison said the city’s firefighters are working with Rivian “to better understand their specific vehicles and to have access to EV vehicles from multiple manufacturers to better understand how they operate on different models can react ”.
Davison continued, “… our department is compiling an EV emergency guide that we will continue to update with specifications directly from the manufacturers.
A number of studies show that electric vehicles are no more prone to fire and are just as safe as regular cars, but firefighters try to learn more about them so they are ready.
Neither Rivian nor Tesla returned our firefighter training email. The Illinois Fire Service Institute said there are 1,068 fire departments in Illinois, and as of 2019, 76 departments have trained there in Champaign.
However, a spokesman said the departments could turn to other private companies for training.
