Golf Clubs and Lithium Buggies: Fire Safety for Cart Barns and Charging Rooms

Golf clubs have quietly become lithium battery depots. A fleet of carts, dozens of members' push-buggy batteries, all charged overnight, often in a room under the clubhouse. A string of fires has made clubs rethink how that room is run.

What has happened

In January 2025, six of the 30 golf buggies at Joondalup Resort in Perth were damaged in a fire in the buggy storage area. The Department of Fire and Emergency Services said it was caused by a lithium-ion battery (The West Australian, 2025).

The October 2023 fire that destroyed Eastern Golf Club's clubhouse in Victoria was first linked to a room used for charging golf cart and buggy batteries. Later reporting attributed the cause to the wiring to that room, but the fire still prompted a rethink across the industry about charging and storage (Australian Golf Digest, n.d.; Leader's Edge, 2024). In 2022 a storage shed fire at The Lakes Golf Club in Sydney destroyed an estimated 300 sets of members' clubs (Australian Golf Digest, n.d.).

Why clubs carry concentrated risk

Insurance industry reporting notes that more than half of electric golf carts now sold use lithium-ion batteries, and that carts are often parked beneath clubhouses worth millions of dollars (Leader's Edge, 2024). Add members' own push-buggy batteries, many of them aftermarket, and the charging room holds a lot of energy from a lot of sources.

A plan for the cart barn

• Separate the charging room from the clubhouse where possible, with detection that alarms to someone.
• Use manufacturer chargers on dedicated circuits, and have the room's wiring inspected.
• Set a policy on members' push-buggy batteries: approved types only, or no charging on site.
• Space carts so one fire doesn't immediately reach the next.
• Pull any damaged or swollen battery out of the room straight away.
• Plan evacuation around the smoke: lithium-ion battery fires release hydrogen fluoride (Larsson et al., 2017).
• Keep lithium-ion extinguishers and a large blanket at the room entry, and containment bags for loose packs.

Dry powder alone won't stop a cart pack reigniting, because it doesn't cool the cells (Tang et al., 2024). A 5 m x 5 m blanket is sized for carts and small machinery, and our Business & Bulk team can quote a package for a cart barn and pro shop.

General guidance only. Fire blankets and containment bags contain a fire and buy time; they do not extinguish thermal runaway. In any battery fire, get clear and call Triple Zero (000). Our extinguishers are certified to EN 3-7:2004+A1:2007 and are supplementary to your statutory fire safety equipment.