When firefighters arrived on scene, they requested the driving force to dump his load on the street, which would cut back the danger of something on the truck itself—gasoline, CNG, and so forth.—catching fireplace. Then the firefighters may put out the blaze simply, treating it like a standard trash fireplace, and have Groot haul away the particles afterward. However this did not work both. The flames had unfold far sufficient by this level to place the truck’s dumping mechanism out of fee.
So, firefighters unrolled hoses and hooked as much as a close-by fireplace hydrant. They acknowledged that the truck was CNG-powered, as have been many Groot autos. CNG presents a decrease upkeep value, makes use of much less gasoline, and creates much less air pollution than diesel, however greatest practices at present counsel not spraying CNG cylinders instantly with water. Firefighters as a substitute tried to purpose water proper into the again of the rubbish truck with out wetting the CNG cylinders close by on the roof.
They have been ready for the telltale hiss of the strain reduction system to set off. These valves sometimes open inside two to 5 minutes, relying on fireplace situations, and they need to be able to venting all their pure fuel some minutes earlier than the CNG canisters would in any other case be at risk of exploding. However the hiss by no means got here, and as Fireplace Chief Lance Harris and his crew labored to safe the scene and put water onto the burning load, the CNG canisters exploded catastrophically as a substitute.
The explosion, as captured by a bodycam.
In a board of trustees meeting this week in Arlington Heights, Harris recounted the incident, noting that he felt fortunate to be alive—and grateful that no township personnel or residents sustained severe accidents.
“We won’t show it,” he stated, however after two months of investigating the state of affairs, his division had concluded with excessive chance that the hearth had been attributable to a lithium-ion battery discarded right into a recycling container. This suspicion was based mostly on the quantity of fireplace and the warmth and pace with which it burned; lithium-ion batteries that enter “thermal runaway” can burn sizzling, at round 750° Fahrenheit (399° C).
Harris’ takeaway was clear: recycle even small lithium-ion batteries responsibly, as they’ll trigger actual hazards if positioned into the waste system, the place they’re usually impacted or compressed.