Episode 280: The Hottest Issue in Firefighting with Ryan Darley

Episode notes

What kind of fires burn hotter and faster than anything firefighters have faced before?

Hello Smart Firefighting Community!

Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy!

In this episode:

Why battery fires require new tactics and tools

Why departments need ongoing training and industry insights to stay ready

The tactics that can improve safety and response

Hear from Ryan Darley - Fire Sales Leader at W.S. Darley and Company and firefighter for Plymouth Fire Department.

Ryan shares his unique journey from working in the family business to hands-on firefighting. He highlights the growing challenges posed by battery fires from EVs, scooters, and household devices.

Ryan breaks down the tools, tactics, and ongoing training that firefighters need to stay ahead of evolving threats. This conversation gives frontline responders the insights to be prepared for what is fast becoming one of the toughest challenges in the fire service.

So take a listen to hear what he has to share!

Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources!

Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn

Chapters

1. 0:00 Intro
2. 0:47 Ryan Darley joins
3. 0:59 Growing up in the family business
4. 3:11 The shift to electric, from cars to scooters
5. 7:44 Firefighters thrown into the fire
6. 11:32 No silver bullet: regulations and codes
7. 15:36 Working with the car manufacturers
8. 18:31 Extinguishing agents and DIN certification
9. 22:31 Where a department should start: SOPs
10. 24:30 Where to keep learning
11. 26:01 Battery fires are the hottest thing in fire
12. 26:43 Wrap

Questions answered in this episode

Why are battery fires more dangerous than traditional fires?

Ryan Darley says battery fires burn hotter and faster than almost anything firefighters have dealt with before, comparing them to lighting a Christmas tree on fire. They can require up to 100,000 gallons of water to extinguish, compared to typical car fires that can be put out in minutes with a hand line. They also off-gas hydrogen sulfide and other nasty materials.

Hear it at 4:00

What tactics should firefighters use when they encounter electric bikes or scooters during a house fire?

Ryan Darley says some departments instruct firefighters not to proceed past an electric bike or scooter until it is dealt with, because if it ignites behind them it could burn through their hose and cut off their lifeline. The options are to throw it out a window or submerge it in a bathtub.

Hear it at 4:00

What tools are available to handle electric vehicle and battery fires?

Ryan Darley describes fire blankets that go over vehicles or bikes to limit oxygen, fire bags to contain burning items, plugs that disable EV drive systems by tricking the car into thinking it is charging, extinguishers with encapsulating foam agents, and special barrels with granular material to safely store compromised batteries.

Hear it at 8:17

Can fire blankets used on electric vehicle fires be reused?

Ryan Darley says that while some manufacturers claim the blankets are reusable, after being through an electric fire the material is toxic and hazardous. Attempts to clean them have not been successful, and he recommends sending the blanket away with the vehicle as hazardous material.

Hear it at 12:19

What should homeowners have on hand for battery fires?

Ryan Darley says every house should now have a small fire blanket in addition to a fire extinguisher, because blankets can handle battery fires and grease fires that extinguishers cannot. However, he cautions that untrained civilians should not run toward fires and should prioritize getting loved ones and valuables out safely.

Hear it at 19:18

Transcript

Machine transcript of the published audio. Names may be misspelled and some sections are missing.

Ep 280 transcript

The Hottest Issue in Firefighting with Ryan Darley

Speakers: Kevin Sofen, Ryan Darley

Source: Whisper medium.en machine transcription of the published Podbean audio (no original transcript found in Drive), lightly cleaned. Speakers were separated by voice clustering and then checked and assigned by hand at every speaker change. Gaps where the model returned no usable text are marked [inaudible m:ss].

[0:00] Kevin Sofen: Welcome to the Smart Firefighting Podcast. Kevin Sofen here, where we cover all things related to the future of smart technology for first responders around the world. Please enjoy the show and let me know what you want to learn about next. Today we're diving deep into one of the toughest and hottest challenges facing the fire service. Ryan Darley from W.S. Darley and Company shares his experience on the front lines dealing with battery fires. We'll hear about real-world tactics, new tools, and why preparation and constant learning are key. This one's for anyone who wants to be ready for what's coming next with electrical battery fire challenges. Ryan Darley, happy Wednesday. How you doing?

[0:47] Ryan Darley: I'm well, Kevin, yourself?

[0:49] Kevin Sofen: I'm doing quite well. So for those of us that don't know Ryan Darley and your journey to W.S. Darley & Company, give us a little bit of the background in 411 on Ryan.

[0:59] Ryan Darley: Yeah, so obviously I was born with the last name and began working at a very young age, doing what I could around the outside of the company. We have specific family rules where you have to work outside the company. So during college breaks, I would do manufacturing, I would work on machines, build things, build pumps. But then I worked outside the business and then came back and took on an international role where I sold everything in the fire industry or in our fire portfolio all over the world, handled pretty much everything found on a fire truck or found in a firehouse, not so much sprinkler systems and things for buildings, but rather active firefighting protection. So yeah, I've been in the international role in the last year or so, I took on a role where I do handle the US and North America as well, oversee all of our fire sales and gosh probably it was maybe nine years ago I took a role as a volunteer firefighter. I thought hey you know I'm in here talking to these firefighters these fire chiefs and I don't know how to use all the tools and I don't know all the tactics and so I want to become a volunteer firefighter. So I did that for about six and a half years and was on a call a busy firehouse that did roughly 6,000 calls a year. I was a paid on call firefighter, I was an EMT. So I really got to learn how fire works, how the tools are used, and what happens when we jump off the truck and run into this fire or that fire or handle this medical situation. So that's my journey and today I oversee all the fire sales for the world and everything that Darley has. I have great teams underneath me and I've taken in a liking and a position to really learn the EV space as I think this is a major issue, not just electric vehicles, but really any battery fires with the rise in fires based from batteries. It's a big topic in fire, so I've really studied it a lot and I won't call myself an expert, but I'm well-versed in what's going on and the issues caused by battery fires.

[3:08] Kevin Sofen: A practitioner, one might say.

[3:10] Ryan Darley: There you go, Kevin.

[3:11] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, so I joined Darley in 2012, and I've always enjoyed learning from you and all the different roles and hats that you've worn from the pumps and the trucks and equipment. And it seems kind of out of necessity with the challenges, the opportunities that EV and EV products bring to the consumer markets, this has also created this major challenge for all things public safety. Oftentimes, most people don't think about what this new convenience on the human side does to who's going to respond when something goes bad. but I'd love to hear kind of your dots and nuances and even perspective of like the evolution to EV, evolution to electric, whether it's the electric car to the electric scooter, what does that kind of look like from a macro perspective and then kind of lead into sort of how fire departments are now starting to manage this shift?

[4:00] Ryan Darley: Yeah, it's crazy. You know, the evolution, everybody thinks, oh, electric cars came out in a couple of years ago in the last 10 years or so, There were electric cars in the early 1900s, but as our world searches for alternative energy and pushes towards a greener space, these batteries are being implemented more often. We're seeing battery-powered engines and batteries are taking over everything. I mean, if you look around your room, there's probably 15 batteries right where you're sitting right now. So everybody's looking for smaller batteries that give us the power density and the ability to run longer and run faster, and so the whole world has really swung towards electrification. And it's a hot topic politically, it's a hot topic in fire. I always coin the term, it's the hottest topic in fire, and I've seen a few other people use that, so I'm glad that it's going, but it really is because these fires that come from batteries, they burn hotter and faster than anything we've ever seen, with the exception of some gases and things like that, but think about it like lighting a Christmas tree on fire. It just goes up and it burns hot, it burns fast, and these things move quick. With our traditional housing, and we used to have bigger boards, more solid material, we've changed in how houses are built, and with the implementation of batteries, these fires go and they go quick. So the department that I was on responded to a Roomba fire, and because of the smoke and what it looked like from the outside, it was a mutual aid response, it was holy cow, and it was just a Roomba that was on fire. So as we get more electrified, these hazards are everywhere and in any given house, there's 20, 30, not just lithium ion batteries, but other batteries out there that have their own set of issues. So what do we do about this? Hey, we can go back to all the manufacturers and say, give us a battery that's safer, well, that's heavier, there's a lot of different things that go into it, but the fire service has really been tasked with responding to these EV fires, these battery fires, and they're really problematic. Anybody can handle a typical car fire, but I've heard stories of 100,000 gallons of water being used on an electric vehicle. That's crazy. Usually you can go up there with a one and a half inch hand line and it's pretty simple. It's out in a couple of minutes and on you go. Now, these things burn for sometimes hours, they burn hot, they off gas the hydrogen sulfide and other nasty materials. So the fire departments really have to look at how we respond, what our tactics are. Don't go past an EV, an electric bike or an electric scooter when you're going into a house. because if that goes off behind you, that could burn through your hose and your lifeline, and then you're stuck. Some people are, there's departments out there that say, if you find an electric bike, an electric scooter, you need to stop, you don't proceed further until you either throw that out the window, and fire departments are having a great time throwing these things out the window, especially in a big department out east. But anyways, it's either that or you have to submerge it, so you go to the bathtub, fill it up, and then submerge the battery, which also creates some other issues. So yeah, it's crazy, and electrification has presented more problems. It's a convenience factor, but it is dangerous, and we're having to deal with it from the fire side.

[7:44] Kevin Sofen: It seems like in the fire service, it's a constant battle of the catch me if you can, where the consumer markets come out with something, and then the fire departments are kind of trying to catch up and deal with, well, we've never dealt with this before, and now we seem to figure it out. I'm curious in your thoughts in terms of like, what are fire departments doing to combat these fires from a tactics perspective, from a tools perspective? I mean, now the fire service has literally been thrown into the fire with this. What is being done? What are some tools and tactics to address this evolving challenge?

[8:17] Ryan Darley: Yeah, I like that you say the firefighters have been thrown into the fire because oftentimes that's what happens is, you know, the problems present itself from maybe something that's never been dealt with before and it's, who do you call? If you don't know who to call, you call the fire department, and the fire department is tasked with so many different jobs. It's phenomenal what they have to be trained on and be able to respond to and figure out. But yeah, there's a lot of tools that are coming out for these battery fires. There's a plug that goes into cars that basically disables the drive system by tricking it into thinking that it's charging and there's battery bags. So the first place we really saw this was in airplanes when people's laptops or cell phones were spontaneously starting on fire, what you saw is the airlines responded quickly and there's a bag. If you go on any US airline, there's a fire bag that you're supposed to stuff these things in. It comes with gloves and some material, so you throw the things in the bag. So there's fire bags, there's fire blankets. So a blanket that you put over an electric vehicle, a blanket that you put over any electric bike, there's different storage containers. So yeah, there's really actually no way to safely put out these electric fires. These bags and these blankets, they just limit oxygen and let the fire burn out within. There's other things like there's a lot of extinguishers and encapsulating agents. Basically, you would spray an extinguisher and it's like a foam that contains the fire or. It wraps itself around the outside of the battery bank and basically snuffs out the fire. So those are a few tools that we've seen out there and then there's these drums. So if you have a house fire and now if it's a big fire, based on that temperature, all of your batteries could be compromised within your house. And this is something that the fire service is a little bit behind on because we're looking at the fire blankets, we're looking at the fire bags, but how do we handle these batteries after they've been damaged? That's a hazardous material and these things, you could have a fire in one room and the fire doesn't even extend into a room not too far away, but the heat goes up, the batteries are compromised, we have to now deal with those. Or a battery that's burned itself out, what do you do with that? Do you call the state duty officer and send it away as hazmat? these barrels that you're supposed to pack the batteries in that have been damaged or compromised and send them to these battery recycling facilities. Many aren't doing it. That's going to be a big shift over the next few years in how do you handle these batteries. I don't think a lot of them are being handled properly. There's barrels, there's bags, and those barrels or bags will have this material in it's a granular material that basically, If the battery starts on fire, it's not going to burn elsewhere, it'll be contained within there, and it limits some of the oxygen so it can't burn.

[11:32] Kevin Sofen: So you just mentioned a couple of these different solutions, and it seems like there truly is no silver bullet, that's apparent, having said that, we need different screwdrivers and wrenches, and hypothetically speaking, that can help address this, but I'm curious in terms of like, are there standards around some of these products, and then even on the flip side, like I know because UL and NFPA are so involved in that. I'm curious in the standards conversation, but I'm also curious in the insurance conversation in terms of like, I've seen parking lots that say these EV vehicles are allowed. My father-in-law's apartment condominium in Florida is now saying that he can't have an EV bike in his apartment. And so from a standards and insurance perspective, what can you share with us on that?

[12:19] Ryan Darley: Yeah, so the regulations are always behind a little bit and we don't know the issues until we've had to deal with them. So yeah, you're seeing people, different apartment buildings or different complexes say no electric vehicles or you can't store an electric bike inside your house. So these standards are kind of catching up as these hazards occur and insurance says this is way too dangerous and you need to take the proper precautions. So I would say we're way behind the eight ball from a policy perspective and what needs to happen. It seems, you know, each individual state, each individual municipality, each individual, you know, landowner or a business owner has their different policies and their insurance is a little bit different. So there's really no, that I'm aware of, no overarching policy that covers all battery type solutions. And then when you speak to standards, you know, NFPA and UL, they're the leaders out there and they have established some standards and have adjusted some standards. When it comes to like electric bags or electric blankets in particular, the Germans have done a great job of coming up with a DIN certification, which basically tests the material that is put over an electric vehicle or put over an electric bike or whatever. So they test it at different temperatures and different intervals. So because of these battery, these car fires, these battery fires, they'll basically spike in temperature and then they'll come down and then they'll go back up and they'll go back down. So this body, this body DIN certifications, they govern a lot of the fire type products in Germany, that's really the best and the only certification for these fire bags, for these fire blankets. As far as the emergency plug goes, there's really no standards that govern that, but yeah, it's crazy how fast we've had to deal with these problems. From an insurance perspective, say you have an electric vehicle fire and you cover it with one of these fire blankets, what do you do with the fire blanket? Because that's potentially a hazardous material now, and there's really no good way, despite what anybody has told you and everybody says, you know, there's these reusable blankets. Well, yeah, they can be reused on a combustion fire, but to reuse a fire blanket after it's been through an electric fire, it's toxic, it's hazardous, people have tried to clean the material and it just hasn't been successful. And while some of the manufacturers say reusable, it's nasty and I would say send it with the vehicle, call the state duty officer, look at your department standard operating procedures and figure out and have a plan going into these situations so you don't have to deal with it on the back end and you're not sitting there or loading a fire blanket back into your vehicle. So yeah, the standards are playing catch up right now And it seems like as soon as we get caught up with the standards, then the technology changes and we're kind of like a dog chasing its tail. But yeah, that's the world we live in.

[15:36] Kevin Sofen: And this seems to be potentially a fully loaded question, but I've seen that a lot of the car manufacturers, that cars are very much like the lifeblood of the American economy. It seems like different manufacturers are taking different approaches in regards to how much they are saying or not saying in regards to what to do or what not to do. I personally believe every manufacturer should have a cradle to grave approach of especially what happens when something goes wrong, but what's been your thoughts or what have you seen in regards to what these different car manufacturers are saying in regards to what first responders should or should not do when dealing with a potential lithium ion battery fire in one of their products?

[16:16] Ryan Darley: Yeah, so really all the manufacturers that have been willing to speak with us, and some are closed door and they say, you know what, we're not gonna speak to you because I think maybe they don't wanna accept responsibility or culpability for some of the issues that they may have seen. Others have come to the party and said, yeah, we've got an issue and these are the mitigation effect things that we're doing, building stronger battery pans underneath the vehicle, stronger, all these cars basically, it's like a bunch of batteries and they have different cells and they're saying, hey, we put up these firewalls basically within the battery bank, so if it starts on fire here, it's not gonna propagate to the next cell. So there's some things being done. Everybody's a little bit different in how they're handling it. Some of these car manufacturers have said, hey, don't put any water on the batteries because that produces hydrogen fluorine and it's extremely toxic and the fire's gonna propagate if you put water on there, so if it's just in one cell and then you flood it, now everything is damaged. And we've seen this with some hurricanes. What happened is all these EVs that were submerged or partially submerged in the hurricane, well, they started to spontaneously start on fire, some the same day, some the next day, some two, three weeks later, they would just start on fire. So the municipalities were renting out horse farms in the case of Florida and basically storing EVs like a certain distance apart in the middle of a field because we didn't know if they were gonna start on fire, when they were gonna start on fire, and it was just kind of a wait and see thing. So yeah, there's just, there's tons of issues and you could have a damaged battery and you don't know it and it's sitting in your garage two weeks later, you haven't touched the car and then it starts on fire. These fires aren't starting right away and not always starting right away. So it's hard to monitor And there's indicators, the temperature spikes, and things like that to say, hey, maybe we have a problem. Take this vehicle out of a garage, get it away from exposures, whatever. But yeah, it's a difficult thing to tackle.

[18:31] Kevin Sofen: And just kind of thinking about growing up when thinking about fires and the idea of when a fire happens in front of you, there's that idea of everyone becomes a first responder. More often than not, we think getting a fire extinguisher and do the PASS technique, pull, aim, sweep, shoot, sweep. And that's kind of very much ingrained into my brain. Also know the idea of, hey, if you've got grease fire, don't put water on it, you know, some of these basics. But from these basics, from, again, from an individual person perspective, not necessarily a trained, certified firefighter, but an individual, how, like for a lithium ion, a Roomba fire or a scooter fire in my home that's maybe early, what's the deal with extinguishers? Do extinguishers work, and if not, what kind do you have to use, or what's the story with?

[19:18] Ryan Darley: Yeah, so there's been some different extinguishing agents that have come out. I've seen some of them tested, some of them that don't work, some of them that work for a little bit of time, and then the fire will eventually burn through the encapsulator. So if somebody had a solution, they're a billionaire overnight. And call me if you've got a solution, because I'd like to be your salesman or get you added to the Darley portfolio, because this is a huge issue and when you think, hey, listen, I've got a fire in my house and I'm gonna go grab the fire extinguisher. Every house now, and I have one at my house, should have a small fire blanket because if something starts on fire, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna walk up to that and I'm gonna. the blanket over the top of it, if it's battery-related or grease-related or something that extinguishers can't handle, I think that there will be a fire blanket. There are fire blankets in pretty much every restaurant, but people's houses are going to have these small fire blankets and it's going to be commonplace. I've got an extinguisher. I've also got a small fire blanket and hey, I'll probably never, hopefully, fingers crossed, never use either one of them, But we also have to be cautious. We don't want civilians, untrained civilians, running in and trying to be heroes. Get your loved ones, get your valuables, and get the heck out of the way. We have to be very careful, and these batteries, they put off nasty materials, and they move quick. The fire departments should really be the ones leading the charge, developing, and stating the standard operating procedures. Every fire is going to be different, whether it's your cell phone or a charging bank. Now we have electric vehicles and there's huge charging banks right outside or inside people's garages. I would never tell anybody to go up to one of those and try to handle the fire or be anywhere near it's a difficult thing and the last thing we want to do is put people in harm's way and say, hey, the protocol is grab this blanket and run towards the fire. Yes, if you're going to do it, the blanket's great because some of these batteries, if you go online and research battery fires, it's like a small firecracker. They can shoot batteries all over the place, which I'll talk about that in a second, but there's small explosions, there's toxic gases, so I don't want to tell anybody to run after a fire with a small blanket because hey, that it could be problematic. Maybe the blanket could protect you if one of these batteries shoots out and doesn't hit you in the eye or knock you unconscious or whatever. It's a little bit extreme, but yeah. And then another thing is you put the fire out and you think you've got it, well then you're gonna get an incendiary fire on the other side of the room because you didn't realize that was also starting too. So some of these battery fires, they put them out, they extinguish it, we move on from the house, we remove the batteries, And then one of the batteries that shot out wasn't fully discharged at the power, and then it starts to fire later. So we're getting rekindles and things like that. So yeah, it's just, there's a lot to tackle and it's a tough space.

[22:31] Kevin Sofen: I mean, yeah, this is not an easy solution or not easy problem to figure out because it does seem like there's a combination of tools and tactics. But you brushed on the Roomba Fire example and before we were recording, and the elevator scenario, but any, maybe one or two sort of, I would say classic, but example scenarios where how a firefighter, or I guess from a civilian perspective or a firefighter perspective, how to approach handling an EV fire, like an e-bike in sort of these sort of average typical scenarios that we're seeing in 2025.

[23:06] Ryan Darley: So the first thing, develop your standard operating procedures as a department first, and as a firefighting body, you gotta be studied, You got to know these problems that you could be facing and have procedures. We can't just show up and figure it out. We know these are happening. In happening, the frequency is going up and up. So study, know what your tools are, have the tools on hand, know what agencies to call, talk about this. And I know every single firefighter is aware of these issues and has had training. And I had many training courses on this. and when I was a firefighter, and there's a lot of unknown. But develop your procedures for these blankets, make sure that you're keeping yourself full SCBA. Anytime you're handling a battery fire, it could be a small fire, but man, there's some toxic stuff. So know what's happening with these fires, approach them safely, approach them from the right position, and just be very careful because they burn hop, they burn fast, they can cut your lifeline or burn through your lifeline behind you and trap firefighters. And it's happening a lot, way too often. So just be careful, follow your procedures and have a game plan going in.

[24:30] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, and you kind of alluded to this already, but I mean, with your experience being a volunteer firefighter and then kind of working kind of in your blood within the fire industry, What have you learned being a volunteer firefighter that has kind of especially opened your eyes to this glaring, hottest issue in the fire service in terms of, again, what are you applying to your daily life and any sort of words of wisdom or insights that you could share with other first responders that are trying to figure out how to approach this from tactics, training, SOP, tools, and everything?

[25:05] Ryan Darley: Yeah, there's a lot of experts, bigger, better experts than I am, And I'm a small firefighter, I was around long enough to learn some tactics and tools and fire behavior, but you know what, there's smarter people than I am out there. Watch videos, get training, go to FDIC, go to any of the training conferences. Every single training conference will have specials or seminars on battery fires. And just make yourself go there. You're gonna have to deal with these fires eventually. and then take that back and train your departments because the knowledge being in one head and not shared is not doing yourself justice. So do your studies, go online, find some videos, find all the knowledge and make sure that you at least have a good understanding of what's happening and what you're dealing with.

[26:01] Kevin Sofen: Well, no shortage of conversation on this topic and I'm sure if we record this again in six months, there'll be some new updates. And yeah, I guess on a final kind of mic drop opportunity, Ryan, you know, is there any quote, favorite quote or words of wisdom that you live by or something that you could leave this with here today?

[26:19] Ryan Darley: Yeah, I think I already dropped it with, you know, this is battery fires are the hottest thing in fire. This is the hottest thing in fire, pun intended. So I've kind of used that one, but yeah, be prepared. It's all about planning, you know, and it goes in firefighting, it's with your daily life. If you go into things well-prepared, you're gonna respond well, practice, and it'll lead to success, so.

[26:43] Kevin Sofen: Right on. Well, Ryan Darley, thank you very much for your time and efforts today. Look forward to more conversations around all things FireTech, and hope you have a great rest of your day, and we'll be seeing you soon in Indianapolis.

[26:56] Ryan Darley: Awesome, Kevin. I always appreciate our conversations. Have a great day. Congrats again on the newborn. Awesome to hear mom and baby are doing well, and always good to catch up, brother.

[27:05] Kevin Sofen: Well, still figuring out this whole sleep thing, but we'll hold that there.

[27:08] Ryan Darley: Yeah, it'll come.

[27:09] Kevin Sofen: All right, thanks, dude.

[27:10] Ryan Darley: Cheers.

[27:11] Kevin Sofen: Thanks for joining another episode of the Smart Firefighting podcast. We hope you learned something today, and if so, please consider leaving us a review or a comment so we can keep creating the best content for you. Have a great day, and thanks for all that you do for public safety.