On November 22, during a routine press conference held by the National Fire Rescue Administration, Wang Tianrui, the Chief Commander of the Fire Supervision Department, issued a reminder while answering questions: in the event of sudden power failure or white smoke emission while driving a new energy vehicle, it is crucial to escape immediately and call for help to ensure personal safety.
This reminder was made in response to a question from a reporter at China Emergency Management News regarding how firefighting and rescue departments can support and ensure the safe development of the new energy industry.
Wang Tianrui emphasized that new energy is a national strategy, and it is the unshakeable responsibility of the fire department to serve and ensure this national strategy. He noted that recent years of new energy fires have revealed two major contradictions: first, it is inevitable for lithium batteries to experience thermal runaway; second, the challenges of firefighting and rescue have not been effectively resolved.
He explained that when lithium batteries catch fire, they explode; traditional firefighting facilities, such as alarm sprinklers, struggle to function effectively. Therefore, it is essential to shift the mindset in terms of building fire prevention, production processes, fire hazard control, and safety management to genuinely meet the practical needs of the new energy industry.
He also suggested raising safety standards. For example, enhance the design standards for factories and warehouses; strengthen fire separation so that once a fire occurs, it can be contained within a specific unit—essentially limiting it to the smallest unit possible. A focus should be placed on early detection and rapid response, encouraging all manufacturers to establish dedicated fire brigades.
Furthermore, he believes that to tackle the challenges of fire rescue, more effective extinguishing agents need to be developed, and improvements made to the tactics and methods for combating new energy fires to enhance firefighting effectiveness. He hopes that relevant companies and research institutions will collaborate to strengthen technological innovation, improve production processes, and particularly enhance the safety performance of critical materials such as electrolytes and membranes, as well as accelerate the development of alternative products to fundamentally address the thermal runaway issues in power batteries.
