Managing Lithium Battery Fire Risks

Incidents and investigations involving lithium‑ion battery fires are increasing and are becoming a real safety challenge across industries, infrastructure, and everyday use, demanding smarter prevention and response controls.

Recent safety data show that as global use of lithium‑ion batteries grows, so too does the number of fires from damaged, misused, or improperly charged cells, with these events sometimes leading to prolonged, intense fires and difficult extinguishing conditions. https://www.britsafe.org/safety-management/2024/lithium-ion-batteries-a-growing-fire-risk

Lithium-powered devices are now everywhere across transport, logistics, worksites, sheds, vehicles, and homes. Phones, power tools, e-bikes, inverters, jump packs, fridges, and auxiliary battery systems have quietly become critical infrastructure, yet the fire risk is still treated as a rare edge case rather than an everyday hazard.

That gap between use and understanding is now showing up in incident data, insurance losses, and regulator interest. Lithium battery fires are increasing; they burn hotter and longer than traditional electrical fires, and when they fail, they do not fail politely.

And... I will not get into the argument about electric vehicles vs. traditional internal combustion engines, etc. That's for another day!

What Is Actually Going Wrong

Most lithium battery fires are not spontaneous. They are the end result of predictable failure modes that get ignored because the battery looks intact right up until it does not.

The core mechanism is thermal runaway. Once a cell overheats, overcharges, shorts internally, or is physically damaged, it can enter a self-sustaining reaction in which its temperature rises faster than it can dissipate. Oxygen is generated inside the cell, which is why smothering often fails and why reignition hours later is common.

Common precursors include overcharging with non-OEM chargers, charging in hot or poorly ventilated spaces, mechanical damage from vibration or drops, swelling dismissed as cosmetic, and storing multiple batteries close together, which allows one failure to cascade into many.

In plain terms, the warning signs are usually there. We just step over them because nothing catastrophic has happened yet.

Why This Matters for Transport and Field Operations

For transport operators, drivers, auto-electricians, and fleet managers, lithium batteries have moved from accessories to system-critical components. Auxiliary battery banks now power fridges, communications, tracking, inverters, and safety equipment, which means a single battery incident can disable a vehicle, shut down a depot, or escalate into a major fire.

Unlike diesel or LPG, lithium batteries introduce an ignition source that can be charging while unattended, inside a cab, inside a workshop, or inside a shed full of other ignition sources. That combination is why insurers and regulators are starting to ask harder questions after incidents.

Practical Controls That Actually Reduce Risk

This is not about banning lithium batteries. It is about controlling them like the high-energy devices they are.

Storage and charging areas should be cool, ventilated, and physically separated from combustible materials. Charging should be done only with manufacturer-specified chargers, and damaged or swollen batteries should be removed from service immediately, not set aside for later use.

Batteries should never be stacked tightly or stored in bulk without separation. A single cell failure should not propagate into a multi-battery event. Charging should be supervised wherever practicable, and overnight unattended charging should be the exception, not the norm.

For vehicles, secure mounting matters. Vibration kills batteries slowly and invisibly. Battery management systems, fusing, and isolation switches are not optional extras; they are control measures.

If it feels like overkill, remember that lithium fires do not give you a second chance to rethink the setup.

If a Battery Incident Occurs, Capture Evidence Early (From experience)

When a lithium battery overheats, smokes, ignites, or fails, the immediate priority is safety. Once the area is secure, evidence capture becomes critical for investigation, insurance, and learning.

Photograph the battery and charger before anything is disturbed; capture serial numbers, model details, charger settings, and the physical condition of the battery, including swelling, venting, or deformation. Note the time, charging state, ambient temperature, and what the battery was powering at the time, and if multiple chemical options are available, what setting it was on.

If the system includes a battery management system, preserve any available logs or fault data. Do not dispose of components until you receive advice, even if you feel the urge to fix the problem quickly.

Poor evidence turns a preventable incident into a mystery. Good evidence turns it into a fix.

In one of the lithium battery fire investigations I led, the cause was identified only after examining several battery charging devices. I observed that the chemical setting (indicated by a light) would change randomly, with the sequence independent for each unit. From this, it was determined that one of the causal factors was the battery system’s failure to maintain the correct chemical setting for the battery being charged. Over time, this led to incorrect battery charging, causing them to swell after several cycles. In a sample of in-use batteries, I found that 90% had swollen by more than 5% of their original size. This led to a national recall and significant changes to battery units and processes surrounding them.

The Bottom Line

Lithium battery fires are no longer rare anomalies. They are a foreseeable risk that comes with modern power systems, and they need to be treated with the same discipline we apply to fuel, pressure, and high voltage.

If your controls rely on luck and good intentions, you do not have controls. You have hope, and hope is not a recognised risk treatment, no matter how long it has worked so far.

This is one of those hazards where doing the boring things early saves you from doing the heroic things later.

Red pill or blue pill...

SJ