The Camino Incident

Yeah, absolutely. So, lithium-ion batteries in a battery energy storage facility from a large-scale perspective have been put into the grid system throughout the United States since right around 2012.

That's kind of when we started to see the implementation of these battery energy storage systems. They come in a variety of different lithium-ion battery chemistries, different types of chemistries and different types of cells from cylindrical cells, prismatic cells, pouch cells. Typically, they are prismatic cells.

They have a variety of different chemistries, and as we progress with our technology, we keep getting better and safer chemistries with safer mechanisms in place, safer battery management systems, additional safety measures inside of those containers to make the containers safer and safer to operate without any issues.

One of the things that we look at from a battery energy storage system timeline is the 2020 year is kind of the trigger point of when the safety mechanisms in the energy storage systems really got reviewed, and taking a long, robust look by a series of organizations such as NFPA and the Underwriters Laboratories, and came up with some enhanced measures that these facilities, energy storage systems, were required to meet.

Prior to 2020, there was less of a regulatory framework. It was more of an industry-specific measures that they took to put the systems into place and less of a regulatory framework in place. And so, a lot of these facilities that have been installed prior to 2020 often are lacking the current updated safety mechanisms that are in place for future installations.

And so, a lot of times the challenges we see with the older systems is a lack of some of the expected safety mechanisms in place.

Yeah, that's a great question. So, NFPA being not a regulatory organization, they make guidelines, recommendations until the NFPA standard gets adopted by the state. So, it's a state-to-state decision whether they adopt the standard. And then when they do adopt the standard, they can make that a regulatory standard that's expected to be held up.

So, not every state adopts all NFPA standards. And so, I am not familiar of which states have adopted the energy storage system standards or not. I know that California has, but there are other states out there that may have not. So, that's a very important thing to know if you are a responder, is — what regulatory framework applies to your jurisdiction?

What can you expect to see when you are responding to some of these types of facilities? And they range from the single small container that almost looks like a large outhouse all the way to a large container that looks like something that would be on the back of a truck, as well as farms, as they call them energy sources, some farms, which might be dozens and dozens of these containers all inside a certain area.

And they also have some that are built inside warehouses, inside other buildings. There are some energy storage systems that get installed inside existing buildings. So, there's a lot of concerns and there's a lot of really assessment and understanding from the local fire department to identify where these things are in your jurisdiction and start thinking about the hazard associated with that particular installation.

If it's underground in a high rise, there are significant challenges associated with that that are way different than if they were in a containerized system out in the middle of a rural area, right? Significant differences if they're in the downtown area near a bunch of other buildings, there are some significant challenges associated with an urban installation versus a rural installation, for example.

Or like we had in Otay Mesa in a warehouse building. There are some very specific challenges associated with that. So, it's important for the responders to do that site assessment, to understand their first-due district, to see what's coming up around them to understand what the regulatory framework that these things fall under, what type of safety mechanisms are or may not be in place and understanding what that looks like from a response profile.

Yeah, absolutely. So, like you guys mentioned, this was down in Otay Mesa. This was a very large warehouse facility. The building was 68,000 square feet divided into 5 interconnected buildings. So, each one of these buildings was 13,600 square feet and had 15,000 lithium-ion batteries in each building. This facility was the largest in the world when it was created and has an energy capacity of 250 megawatt hours. For a sense of scale, 1 megawatt is enough to power 750 California homes. So, this was a very, very large facility, and it was a known facility in our area 38.

And the crews had trained there before, they toured the area, and they've actually had 6 incidents there prior: 2 were issues with the alarm system, and then 4 were issues with the exterior transformers. So, this was nothing new to this responding group. Thankfully, they're aware of the hazards of the building. When they got there on May 15th, it came out as a general fire alarm. So, this is a 2-unit response.

Truck 38 showed up with nothing showing and tied in with the energy storage technicians that were at the site. And they were notified that the fire suppression system, which was an inert gas system, had been deployed and no one was allowed in the building for 22 minutes while that was active. So, following their SOPs, they had the second in engine, Engine 43, from the city of San Diego, lay dry lines to the FDCs and were waiting for the inert gas to clear.

While they were waiting in investigative mode, the water gong activated, a roll-up door automatically opened 1 foot, and water started to pour from the building. So, this was a good indication that we had an active fire, and that we had gone past it being controlled by the inert gas system.

So, the first-in IC called for a commercial alarm and started setting up for a possible defensive fire. And this was a big mindset change for the IC. At first, he came in thinking this is one of their many alarms they've had at this facility, and now they realized they had an actual incident. What they were seeing was lights, white smoke, and I use the term smoke, but what it probably was — was the electrolytes in the batteries burning and off-gassing which looks very similar to the white smoke we're used to on a normal fire.

They set up initially for a defensive fire operation, but in conversations with other crews coming in and not knowing the hazards of the building, they backed everybody off and set it up to be run as a hazmat incident.

So, when the first NBC arrived on scene, he declared it officially as a hazmat incident, used the first alarm units to evacuate the adjacent buildings and ensure that the exclusionary zone was set up. And then when that was struck as a hazmat, our county and city hazmat crews responded to the incident.

And this was huge. Getting hazmat on scene gave us the ability to really understand what our hazards were and develop mitigations for those hazards. And that's something I think I'd really like to stress for everybody that's dealing with one of these incidents is bring your hazmat in early. Bringing them into our command structure really helped us start to mitigate the hazards.

Our primary hazards and concerns was that potential of explosive gases within the building. We learned from an incident in Arizona and from our hazmat folks is when these batteries are burning, they're releasing large amounts of hydrogen, which is extremely explosive. And when we're dealing with a building like this that was sealed up, it was just a commercial warehouse building, we had a very high potential buildup of explosive gas.

Of course, we were also concerned with the toxic contaminants going into the air and then the water that we're using to cool these batteries. The only way we could really test it was actually utilizing our city bomb squad.

So, San Diego Fire and Rescue manages a bomb squad, and we brought them out there. We taped on some forecast monitors and chem strips to a bomb robot and brought it near the building. And that was great. That actually allowed us to confirm our concern, and we did find that there was extremely high levels of possible explosive gases.

So, we had to back up. In our plan for this building, we were getting periodic releases of white smoke and small sounds of thumps which indicated that these batteries were burning. But we were kind of keeping it in check with water. So, we continued to do that over the night, found where the water was running into a retention pond and then planned for in the morning to take more readings to determine if we could approach the building.

Overnight, with the amount of water that was flowing, additional sprinkler heads were releasing, the water overflowed the initial retention pond and had to be dammed and diked at additional locations farther downstream so we could contain it. In the morning, we were able to come back out there, got that bomb squad robot back out there, took our readings and noticed that the explosive gases had been reduced significantly.

And this allowed us to bring our hazmat team in. They were able to open some of the person doors around the building, and that roll-up door that was partially open, as well as send a truck company on the roof to release an automatic hatch that was up above that hadn't released. That really helped us because our ventilation profile improved, and we weren't as concerned with the buildup of explosive gas.

Now we were really able to build our objectives, and our objective was because this building had so many batteries and so much energy inside, we really wanted to keep the fire in the building of origin. We did not want this to extend to the adjacent buildings. And of course, with Murphy's Law, the building that we were dealing with is in the exact center of the whole warehouse.

So, to do that, we made sure that we were protecting the public and the environment by setting up environmental monitoring. And then we allowed the batteries to burn and then slowed the burn by applying water. And initially it was via the sprinkler systems. And that was working pretty well until day 3. At about 1800 on day 3, we had a large thermal runaway take place.

And in about 2 hours, the fire became uncontrolled and started burning through the roof. At that point, I was the incident commander. I struck a commercial first alarm, and we've aggressively fought the fire for 20 hours. We had 2 aerial master streams, 2 ground monitors and that sprinkler system running. So, we were moving about 5,000 gallons per minute to control this fire, and it took us about 20 hours to get it under control.

Once we got this incident under control, we sat back, regrouped, we had brought in some subject matter experts from private mitigation companies, and we were able to develop some attack plans that were a little more directed. What really helped us was actually being able to open up the building.

It was a metal skin building with firewalls on the Alpha and Charlie sides. We opened up the building on the Bravo and Delta side and were able to get directed water streams into the battery racks that were on fire. And that helped us tremendously. Took us till about the 8th day to knock down all the fires that were popping up within that building.

This whole time we were working really well with the building owner. It was recognized early that unlike normal instance where the fire department can put the fire out and hand it back to the property owner really quickly, there was going to be a lot of logistical challenges to allow that to happen.

We had to have the building owner have a mitigation company that could manage these burnt, damaged and destroyed batteries. We had to have them have a plan for shoring the building. We had to have a plan for them to disconnect all the electrical facilities connected to it. So, that mitigation process was ongoing from the beginning.

But after about day 8, we spent another 7 days working directly with the property owner to ensure that all of the private mitigation companies had been put into place to allow us to safely return the building to the property owner, ensuring there was no threat to the public or the environment.

So, it was a very different incident than what we're used to. Definitely a lot of lessons learned from this incident. One of the things that I found really to be a lesson learned for me, was bringing that hazmat crew in. As a company officer, we're used to running and managing incidents and we're pretty used to dealing with the hazard in front of us.

But lithium-ion technology is changing so quickly, the hazards aren't fully known and understood. Having those subject matter experts at your side is tremendously valuable. That was probably the greatest thing we had. That and having Rob Rezende there with us as the alternative energy emergency response coordinator gave us a lot of confidence in our operations. Something for the firefighters that are listening to this: our situation was relatively unique because it was a large warehouse and it really necessitated us to aggressively fight the fire to keep it from going to the other parts of the building.

But that firefight very likely extended our incident. So, we spent a lot of time, money, resources on cooling these batteries down. But as you apply water to batteries, you're causing new problems. We're increasing our potential. We're increasing the likelihood that we're going to have additional incidents in areas that may not have been affected by the initial failure.

So, every incident's unique, but if you can size up your incident and look at it and determine if application of water is going to be a positive or a negative for you, I think that's really important. One thing that I think we excelled at was working with that property owner, and Rob was a big champion and a helper for us to realize that the downstream of this incident is going to be long term.

We had to have plans for mitigating the batteries. We had to have plans for dealing with the runoff water. We had to have plans for stabilizing the building. And I think we did that really well. I was very proud of us for doing that. And it's not something that we normally think about on a day-to-day incident.

There was quite a few lessons learned in this process. But as a firefighter, I think it's really important to realize that these are just different incidents than we're used to. As simple as seeing white smoke and thinking you have moisture in your fire is not accurate anymore. We're looking at possible electrolytes burning off, right?

Realizing what you don't know so you bring the experts in to take a look at it is really huge. When you have these facilities in your area, it's critical to preplan them. Even understanding if you have to use large amounts of water to fight these fires, where's that water going, right? Is this going to affect another jurisdiction?

Is this going to go into a waterway? Having a plan for every one of these incidents in the beginning is going to make your job a whole lot easier than coming into it blind.

Yep. Great question. So, this building was kind of unique. It was approved prior to the rewrite in 2020. So, after 2020, a large warehouse like this wouldn't be permitted. Another thing we ran into is it didn't have backup power for the monitors within the building. So, we were running a little bit blind on the conditions inside the building, whereas some of the newer facilities are going to provide you with more information from the building, which would have been extremely helpful.

We actually had — this wasn't a CAL FIRE incident, but it was within our county, and Rob went to another battery energy storage facility fire just a couple months ago, but it was in a containerized system, a much more modern system. And that incident lasted about 18 hours.

It was much easier to mitigate, and it kind of shows the advantage of following these regulations and building to current code.

Yeah, I think that's a great point that every incident is research. The one thing that I can say is consistent with lithium-ion batteries, that they're consistently inconsistent.

So, every single incident we've gone to has behaved differently. We do see some things that are consistent, such as the white gas, which is typically toxic and explosive gases that are emitted from the incident. But as far as propagation of the thermal runaway — so the fire going from one battery to the next to the next — that varies in timeline.

It varies in aggressiveness and how explosive the incident can be. There's a lot of factors associated with that from the state of charge, the battery chemistry, to what the cause of the fire itself was. And this particular case is still under investigation. And so, it's really difficult to know why it behaved the way it did.

So, I think that understanding that every single one of these incidents is going to require a hazmat approach in the sense of you have to slow down and take a look at what you're presented with and identify and do a really good hazard risk analysis of your situation from the risk to the public, to the risk to the firefighters, to the pros and cons of your tactical considerations.

Just like Dan said, applying water has some benefits and also has some downsides. And not applying water has some benefits, but also has some downsides. And being able to think through that process and execute the best strategy and tactic for what's given to you is a really critical skill and typically really difficult to do when we're at the infancy of these types of systems, because we only have so many experiences spread throughout the nation. So, there's not a lot of people that have been involved in multiple incidents. And so, having specialized teams that typically are either training or researching or being trained to that standard really gives you a leg up. Having a lifeline, having a person you can call or a team you can call that says, "Hey, I'm here. I don't know. I've never been in this before. Can you help me?"

So, one of the numbers I always recommend is calling the EPA's on-scene coordinator emergency line. They may not be able to tell you all the firefighting skills that are necessary to do the task, but they can absolutely connect you with help and subject matter expertise that can start getting you going in the right direction, confirm your thought process, and kind of give you some watch outs as to what to look for.

So, you really do need to treat every one of these incidents as very unique and really do a thorough risk analysis each time, from the smaller incidents that may be a residential energy storage system, or it might be just a couple of scooters on fire, all the way to an electric vehicle to an energy storage system, a large one. They're all going to present some unique challenges and the tactics are going to need to be driven by that risk analysis.

What is the best thing I can do now to minimize the risk to life, primarily? And then, of course, property and then incident stabilization and the environment. And so, keep those priorities in line and really do a proper risk analysis. And again, to do a proper risk analysis, you need to understand the risk.

And so, if you don't understand the risk, reach out to people that can help you understand what that looks like. Take the opportunity to listen to things like these podcasts and other trainings that are available online. Start informing yourself on how to properly do a risk analysis.

Do some case studies, look at incident reviews that have been published, and you can learn a lot from other people's experiences. So, I think that's a really critical component to that, and it really will drive the strategy and tactics. Primarily our goal is always to be for life safety and firefighter safety.

And there are many times where we may accept a higher level of risk without really knowing what we could have done in the sense of maybe we didn't have to go at that level of risk. Maybe because we didn't do a proper risk analysis, we may have not done a good risk profile.

And so, I think it's really critical for us to do a good risk profile in these incidents.

And to follow up with what Rob said, listeners can see me nod my head as aggressively as I was. Having someone to call is huge, and education is huge. Luckily, I had seen Rob present during a conference, so I knew who he was before we called him.

And then I had someone that I trusted to reach out to. So, I think that's huge. And for firefighters around the nation, if you can tie in with your local experts, whether it's the hazmat team, whether it's the EPA on-scene coordinator. I hadn't worked with the EPA prior to this incident, and I'll be honest, I was a little intimidated.

But an EPA on-scene coordinator, this isn't someone that's here to fine, this is someone here to help. So, getting ahead of it and talking with those experts so you know who you're working with, it will take a tremendous load off you when that incident does occur.

I think that as these energy storage systems start to get permitted through your jurisdiction, the authority having jurisdiction, whether it's your county or your city, often it's either the mayor or council or a manager. As they start getting presented to, to make decisions, it's really important that the fire department have a seat at the table.

And so, again, building that network and that relationship with your elected officials, with your decision-makers, with your gas and electric utilities companies, and having those conversations to say, "We want to have a seat at the table. We want to know what is coming to our jurisdiction."

Again, starting to do that risk analysis early is really important. And you'll be surprised; a lot of these energy storage system companies that I've — all of them that I've worked with are incredibly willing to try to help where they can, whether it's to help train or whether it's to help provide you some initial response tactics based on their specific build, the way they build their energy storage systems.

And just like in Otay Mesa, the owner/operator was incredibly helpful. They wanted to do the best that they could for the fire department and for the community. So, I've found them to be very easy to work with. I think it's important that you, again, just have that conversation and have that opportunity to say, "Hey, we'd like to have a seat at the table so that we become more educated and aware of what's coming to our jurisdiction."

So, I would urge the decision-makers from the fire departments to reach out, build those networks and start that conversation in your specific areas.

I think it's just important like every high-hazard thing you have in your jurisdiction, find out about it, preplan it, talk to the experts, talk with the companies that run them so you're ready. Because these incidents do occur, and we're the fire department.

We plan for the worst possible outcomes. So, be ready for it. If you're ahead of the game, preplanning these incidents can make your life a whole lot easier.