Lithium Ion Battery Fire
The Challenge:
A lithium ion battery fire, involving several large batteries, ignited in an enclosed room on the 5th level of the building causing significant fire and smoke damage. The resultant contamination was tested and determined to contain harmful substances and therefore additional care was required to ensure any waste water from the restoration process was diverted away from sewers, tanks or storm water drains.
Solution Provided:
Initially the external areas were cleaned using high pressure water which was recovered using vacuum booms and diverted into IBC’s for recovery by a specialist contractor. The buildings glass façade had been impacted and required cleaning also, so rope access was used to scale and clean the external glass.
Once the remaining batteries had been removed, Steamatic trialed a number of restoration methods. Due to the severity of the fire and pressure build up, the contamination had been driven into the tilt slab panels meaning that no traditional methods worked. The laser system was trialed and returned excellent results whilst using no water. Steamatic were requested to continue the process for the remaining areas with completion 2 weeks later.
