The first 60 seconds of a lithium-ion battery fire: what to do

A lithium-ion battery fire moves fast. It can go from a faint chemical smell to open flame and toxic smoke in under a minute. What you do in that first 60 seconds, calmly and in the right order, largely decides how the next hour goes. Here's the plan, before you need it.

The most important thing to understand up front: once a battery is in full thermal runaway, you are not going to put it out (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission [ACCC], n.d.). It generates its own heat and vents flammable, toxic gas (Larsson et al., 2017). So this plan is about people and containment, not heroics.

If it's an early warning (smell, heat, swelling, hissing)

• Stop charging and stop using the device immediately.
• If it's safe, unplug it, don't grab a device that's already hot or venting.
• Move it onto a hard, non-combustible surface, outside, or into a fire-resistant containment bag, away from anything that can burn.
• Don't puncture, cover or submerge it. Keep watching it from a safe distance.

If it's already alight or smoking

• People first. Get everyone out of the room and the building. Don't let anyone go back for belongings.
• Close the door. If you can do it safely on the way out, closing the door slows the spread of fire and toxic smoke.
• Call 000. Tell them it's a lithium-ion battery fire and what the device is; it changes how they respond.
• Only if it's small and safe, an EV fire blanket or lithium-ion extinguisher can contain an early fire and buy time, but never at the expense of your own escape.
• Stay out. These fires can reignite. Don't re-enter until the fire service says it's safe.

Read this once, talk it through with your household or team, and make sure everyone knows where the exits and any fire equipment are. In a real battery fire there's no time to think it through, which is exactly why you think it through now.