22 July 2021

Large Lithium-Ion Battery Fire in Illinois

A fire in a facility that stored 100 tons of lithium-ion batteries is not a small fire. This story is from two weeks ago, but while searching for a story about smaller battery fire in Illinois this week, this story kept popping up. State Declares Disaster For Morris After Battery Fire

Morris, IL is about 60 miles southwest of Chicago's downtown. The fire caused an evacuation of the area for three days. Lithum batteries are very toxic when they burn.

On Friday, officials in Morris said enough progress had been made in battling an industrial fire to allow thousands of residents who were evacuated three days earlier to return home.

Fire Chief Tracey Steffes says there is no active burning at the building that contained 100 tons of batteries.

The burning batteries were smothered with 28 tons of cement.

Though they said they were still monitoring, the last mention of the situation was around the time this story came out. Is it safe to assume that means the concrete worked? Probably. It is hard for me to see this solution as something that we could use everyday. The fire chief had indicated that water or fire suppressant foam could have caused an explosion. This is the lamestream media, so there are not a lot of technical details.

Lithium-ion batteries burn, and they are hard to extinguish once they get going. And they are toxic. So, how much environmental damage was caused by all that green technology?

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