Fire Dept Scrambling to manage debris from lithium battery fires
|
Dear New Yorkers,
In just two years, the number of fires caused by lithium-ion batteries commonly found in e-bikes has more than quadrupled, according to the FDNY.
The fires have left behind so much hazardous, still-flammable material that the Sanitation Department ran out of storage — and used an emergency contract to hire a company to cart it away.
Lithium-ion batteries removed from fires filled 159 containers — in sizes from 5 to 85 gallons — at a DSNY storage facility in Gravesend, Brooklyn last year. Then the city hired a company called Action Trucking to remove them in the fall.
Many common items, like watches and cell phones, safely use the rechargeable batteries. But larger, unregulated versions found more recently in electric bikes, scooters and other devices have sparked dangerous fires.
Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh on Friday wrote to the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission, asking it to take steps to regulate the batteries, including stopping uncertified ones from entering the country.
In her letter, she said the batteries led to 219 fires in New York City last year, causing 147 injuries and six deaths.
A Tuesday morning fire in Bushwick that critically injured a woman was the
No comments:
Post a Comment