Lithium battery factory fire 1

[3DDave]

Cooling, not freezing; it is from evaporation of the liquid in the canister. It won't be enough to cool the battery; just a millimeter or less depth on skin. The material in the extinguisher is to stop the externally driven fire from the electrolyte in the battery that gets splashed about, no different than spilled fuel of any other kind.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

It was frostbite. And there was ice round it in the flooded rubbish cart.

Our technicians were a bit surprised.

Don't really care to be honest they work effectively. The bag is wire mesh and holds a rapid expansion well.

They demod one with a laptop when they were in the last stages of the sale.

To be honest I only have the basic training using them. The cabin crew get more. I have other things to do.

 

[3DDave]

Now I am really perplexed. They show that the extinguisher doesn't use a propellant at all; it uses a thick walled silicone rubber bladder that acts as a water balloon for the water-based extinguisher material. Nothing about that process should generate any freezing at all.

https://youtu.be/-APQqnI2T9k?t=18

and they mention that the silicone balloon is the life limiting part of the system, so it has only a 3 year shelf life.

Not saying you didn't see freezing, but it wasn't from the extinguisher they provide with the kit.

 

[mfgenggear]

Any hoot good discussion.
In shop it was required to put all flammable in a fire proof cabinet. And all shop rags in s fire covered can.
Working with linseed oil it was noted it could combust. And any shop rags needed to be fire prevention buckets. Seems to me a procedure needs to be to rectify the situation.

 

[3DDave]

The entire factory is filled with flammable materials.

Still no idea how even one person was killed much less how 23 died. They aren't explosives; they don't appear to detonate, though they did seem to pop pretty well.

From fire alarm to clearing the building should be 15 to 30 seconds unless this is like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire where the emergency exits were chained shut by management.

 

[3DDave]

From Wikipedia:

Eighteen Chinese workers, two South Koreans and one Laotian were among the dead, according to the Hwaseong fire service. Gyeonggi Province fire official Cho Sun-ho reported that most of the workers were temporary employees who likely were not familiar with the structure of the building. He said that the workers were killed by smoke inhalation instead of burn injuries due to the fire starting on the second floor of the warehouse, with the workers likely succumbing within 15 seconds of the fire spreading to their location after taking one to two breaths due to the toxicity of the smoke generated by the batteries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aricell_battery_factory_fire

(local fire official Kim Jin-young) Kim said those found dead likely failed to escape via stairs to the ground.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/south-korea-fire-battery-factory-deaths-hwaseong-near-seoul/

As to the smoke:

They can feature high percentages of hydrogen, and compounds of hydrogen, including hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride and hydrogen cyanide, as well as carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and methane among other dangerous chemicals.

https://www.ttclub.com/news-and-res...t-the-only-danger-with-lithium-ion-batteries/

On contact with water hydrogen fluoride becomes hydrofluoric acid, which is an anesthetic that also dissolves calcium from bones; this release of calcium interferes with the calcium ion transfer that regulates heart beat. Hydrogen chloride => hydrochloric acid, but if you are anesthetized already the pain of that acid might not be there to get you to hold your breath just a little longer.

This astonishing information is commensurate with the role of calcium as the key factor in coupling cardiac excitation (depolarization) and contraction. The calcium ion is the activator of chemically bound energy to mechanical energy in all types of contractile structures, from microfilaments to striated muscles.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2716183/

So the new guys were left behind when the locals all split for the stairs. They probably didn't have a misting suppression system to capture the nasty byproducts before people could breath them and likely instead had individual heat-activated sprinkler heads.

 

[hokie66]

If this video is indeed of the ignition of the fire, it doesn't look like anyone on that floor had a chance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L7g46pVGhY

 

[3DDave]

They wasted a lot of time screwing with the fire, first unstacking piles of batteries and then going after the expanding fire with an extinguisher that cannot possibly handle the job.

 

[mfgenggear]

Wrong equipment

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Now I am really perplexed

Your not the only one, which is why I was thinking it was an endothermic agent plus other things.

The main thing is it works. And its not some stupidly involved size or training requirement. its crew bag size and max 1 kg

if you watch the

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYkUJLUOnx8

Its extremely rapid.

I haven't seen one in action first hand, but there are video's in our recurrent training. The aftermath is just chatting with people.

Even with the bag in the can the "agent" will come out sub zero on application and gas expanding round it's bag which may have caused it. Our ones got both full cans of it.

Statistics have shown you have 12 mins to get a fire supressed or on the ground if you have a fire onboard. Halon extinguishers definitely didn't work with them. That was part of the sales pitch demo.

They seem to be definitely more effective than just putting in a container to run out of there own oxidizer.

 

[TugboatEng]

Does Halon even exist anymore? Even us Neanderthals on the tugboats are running much more modern chemical chain reaction interrupting agents such as FM-200.

Does anyone remember the fire grenades? Glass balls filled with perchloroethylene (carbon-tet) that you would throw into the fire?

My grandpa used to tell me that he used carbon-tet as a lubricant for machining difficult metals. He was having trouble with a specific material and used the fire extinguisher for lube. Maybe this wasn't the best advice.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Yes there is loads of it out there.

They are requiring new agents on newly certified aircraft but the old still have it for engine fires.

The cabin extinguishers are getting replaced as they fail check. And one is carried for cockpit use I think for electrical on older types. Which I suspect is because they don't want to rerun the certification testing for the new agent's.

We had them on the Q400 but A220 doesn't.

The people in the forum that deal with certification will know the real story. As an end user we just have to do fire training every two years. And the actual use of the equipment hasn't changed. So anything I know about it is just picked up out of interest and is not fact.

 

[TugboatEng]

In my experience, most people call non-CO2 agents Halon incorrectly so I'm wondering if the wrong terminology is being used. The manufacture of Halon has been outlawed for quite some time.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

We have BCF and HAFEX extinguishers in cabin.

They are not producing it but it's being recycled.

The recurrent training comes with an exam on the different types and fire types they are to be used on.

You might be surprised how knowledgeable cabin crew are on the fire subject and first aid/life support.

Ours are all trained up on the defibs, there is even a simulator for them available they can go and use outside the training centre. And they do go and use it out of personal choice.

Quite what the normal standard is for them in your region I have no clue. Here I would say they wouldn't be classed as most people.

 

[3DDave]

"The chemical name for FM-200™ is 1,1,1,2,3,3,3-Heptafluoropropane" Gotta love more fluorinated chemistry.

"FM-200™ is a clean agent that is safe around people; therefore, FM-200™ fire suppression systems are safe to install in occupied spaces."

As long as it isn't displacing air; the Halon system that was in the computer center would kill anyone who didn't leave immediately from suffocation due to displacement. As above, one supplier says it is completely safe. The MSDS says "Simple Asphyxiant." Want to guess which is the truth?

Halon 1301 is named:

Bromotrifluoromethane
Trifluorobromomethane
Monobromotrifluoromethane
Trifluoromethyl bromide

Bromated and fluorinated, Halon had it all.

I'm striking out on endothermic reactions suitable for firefighting. One would expect them to be very popular. Not having an MSDS sheet for a flight-approved fire extinguisher is baffling. One should be on file with the airline.

 

[TugboatEng]

My dad spent his career as a pest control advisor. For a long time his specialty was fumigation. They used methyl bromide to kill nematodes in the soil. Methyl bromide and Halon 1001 were the same product. My dad used to brag about it being the fire extinguishing agent on WW2 aircraft.

Halon 1301 is not supposed to displace oxygen and should not extinguish life. I don't know about others, we never used them in the maritime industry. FM-200 is intended to be a replacement for Halon 1301.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Its fair comments that you have made Dave,

Lets face it I have no input to what we use. It will be EASA approved. And its made by Germans.

They are used by Lufthansa group and British Airways amongst others. Its not a small operator tick a box product.

But its not in the MEL.

I used to be server room halon qualified.

I think from memory the main issue is its heavier than air and you won't expel it after inhalation. If you recovered someone from the server room the first thing you did was turn them upside down and forcibly compress the lungs while the lungs are elevated above mouth before starting mouth to mouth.

We carried small compressed air bottles with a regulator on them in the server rooms. The system gave you a 5 second flashing lights and very loud warning before it fired. get breathing out your bottle and cover your eyes in a crouched position I think was the SOP when the noise stopped stand uncover eyes and get out.

There was a big bottle of air with facemask mask outside the rooms for if there was any dog tags missing from the occupancy board.

 

[mfgenggear]

Lol this is above my pay scale. Seems I have catch up on training. Like those poor souls un video.
Lack of training can kill. When it's about chemicals and rare flammable metals or not what

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

mfg a lot of things have changed recently, seems some spent the COVID period rewriting the manuals.

 

[TugboatEng]

Which Halon product are you referring to?

Halon 1301 is by far the the most common. Halon 1301 works at low enough concentrations that it should not be hazardous to life.