Why can’t fires be put out with big fireproof blankets?

379 viewsOtherPhysics

On the news they were talking about Tesla battery fires being really hard to put out. I thought, why couldn’t you just slide a fireproof fabric of some kind under the burning Tesla. Pull that sucker up, and vacuum seal it.

Basically, why aren’t fires put out more often by cutting off oxygen? It seems like the most effective way as opposed to dousing it with water or sand.

In: Physics

16 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

They can be. You don’t even have to wrap it. There are fire blankets designed specifically for fighting EV fires but they aren’t cheap to make and not everyone has them. If you do, it’s actually one of the more effective ways to deal with an EV fire.

It doesn’t actually stop the fire but it contains it. EV fires are hard to put out because the base of them isn’t actually fire, it’s thermal runaway. Batteries short, releasing the stored energy as heat and this causes fires. If you can prevent most stuff from burning when hot with the blanket it keeps it relatively controlled but you still have to dissipate the stored energy and the blanket has to survive that heat.

You are viewing 1 out of 16 answers, click here to view all answers.