"Q4Flo" helps fire brigades in the fight against burning electric cars - "Increasing understanding of the danger situation"
Created: 03/17/2022, 17:19
By: Julian Baumann
The company "Q4Flo" from Maulbronn trains fire brigades throughout Germany how to deal with burning electric cars.
© Q4Flo
E-car fires pose completely new challenges for the fire brigade.
The company "Q4Flo" from Maulbronn prepares the emergency services - with a unique training offer.
Maulbronn - More and more e-cars from manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz and Tesla are on German roads.
This also increases the number of accidents involving battery-powered models.
According to a study, hybrids and combustion engines catch fire more often than e-cars, but e-car fires pose completely new challenges for the fire brigades in Baden-Württemberg.
The previous courses and training courses of the fire brigades must therefore be adapted to the new circumstances.
The company "Q4Flo" from Maulbronn (Enzkreis) has created a unique range of training courses to comprehensively prepare fire brigade members and managers.
In an interview with BW24*, Daniel Rothmaier, a partner at "Q4Flo" and a qualified mechanical engineer, explains how the training courses came about, the challenges for the fire departments and the dangers that primarily stem from the chemical substances in the electric car batteries.
"It is very important to understand that the chemical battery poses a risk," says Rothmaier.
"A lot of people forget that."
E-car fires: dealing with lithium-ion batteries is of particular importance
With the increasing focus on e-mobility in the automotive industry, the number of e-car fires is also increasing.
A particularly fatal example happened on September 30 last year in Stuttgart.
An e-bus caused a major fire in a Stuttgart bus depot.
Over 200 firefighters from the state capital were on duty to bring the fire under control.
With the increasing proportion of battery-powered vehicles on the road, handling lithium-ion batteries in the event of a fire is of particular importance.
The company “Q4Flo” has dedicated itself to this task.
"The idea came about because we also had further training on the subject of battery technology in our day-to-day work," says Daniel Rothmaier, who is a partner in "Q4Flo" alongside Christian Kern, to
BW24
.
"So we thought about who else it could affect us and that the knowledge could help the fire brigades." Dealing with electrical engineering and electrochemistry in particular is still new territory for many members of the fire brigade.
"Everyone has a hard time with that," knows Rothmaier, who is also active in the development of automotive battery systems.
"Q4Flo" offers training courses and practical seminars for fire brigades and managers
According to the official website, the name "Q4Flo" of the company from the northern Black Forest stands for "Qualification for the Florian".
St. Florian is the patron saint of the fire brigade.
In smaller communities in particular, there is often only a small number of full-time emergency workers.
Accordingly, the volunteer fire brigade is used, whose full-time members pursue completely different activities.
"That's why we offer a unique practice-oriented program to pick everyone up," says Daniel Rothmaier.
"We offer the web seminars parts 1 and 2 for managers, in which the dangers and challenges of an e-car fire are explained specifically for the fire brigade."
The company has already carried out these fire brigade-specific and practice-oriented web seminars for emergency services from over 50 districts in Germany.
"We also offer a practical seminar that we did for the first time on March 8th at the Oberriexingen fire department (Ludwigsburg district)," says Daniel Rothmaier in an interview with
BW24
.
"On April 1, we will start further training courses in the district of Ludwigsburg and want to offer around five to ten dates." During these on-site exercises, the fire brigades can learn how to deal with a burning electric car on a test object.
"We always use the same car model as a test model, a Skoda Fabia with a combustion engine," says Rothmaier.
This car is "equipped with all the components of an electric car - for example with a dummy battery." A total of 12 different scenarios can be played out at these practical seminars by "Q4Flo".
“It gets very loud there and it will smell,” explains the shareholder.
Accordingly, all the senses that are also addressed in a real car fire are addressed during the exercise.
"The aim of the training is to increase understanding of the risk situation."
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E-car fires are no more dangerous for emergency services - "there are just other dangers"
In the recent past, several incidents with burning e-cars showed that such an operation is often associated with a great deal of effort for the emergency services.
The ignition of the e-car battery causes long-lasting chemical reactions that cannot be dealt with either with water or with extinguishing foam.
"The effort for the fire brigade is significantly higher in the event of an e-car fire," says Daniel Rothmaier.
"An operation often lasts several hours and thousands of liters of water are required to prevent thermal spread."
In some cases, the last option to extinguish a burning e-car is to completely flood the vehicle with water in a special container and thus determine the chemical substances.
However, this is not necessary in every case.
"In principle, we use our normal operational tactics and extinguishing agents in the event of fires in electric vehicles," says a spokesman for the Stuttgart fire brigade when asked by
BW24
.
"In this case, there is an increased risk of re-ignition and we sometimes need more water than in a 'normal' car fire." In principle, however, an action in an e-car fire is no more dangerous for the members of the fire brigade, explains Daniel Rothmaier.
"It just presents other dangers."
With the unique training offer, the company "Q4Flo" wants to sensitize the fire brigades to these new dangers, train them in how to deal with chemical substances and take away the reservations and fears that often circulate in connection with accidental electric cars.
"If you are properly prepared, the danger is not higher in such an operation," says Daniel Rothmaier.
The Stuttgart fire brigade has already included the handling of electric cars in the event of a fire in their training.
*BW24 is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
