Ongoing training within a fire department enables firefighters to respond more efficiently and produces a well-prepared force when responding to any situation. Monmouth Fire Captain Craig Cozadd says a current fire investigation class brings a different point of view to determine a cause of a fire, including electric vehicles:
“If we have a fire, you go in and you investigate the scene, the cause, origin, to try and determine if it is natural or accidental and make a determination if we need to call the state Fire Marshal or if it is something local jurisdiction can handle. It gives you a different vantage point in looking at it. It fact we have had classes for EV’s. The big problem we have with electric vehicles is the battery packs are so huge that they are really hard to put out. I wasn’t familiar with some of these tactics that guys were talking about. They said that the bigger cities, Los Angeles, will have containers that they put the cars in when they are on fire and then put dirt on top of it to put them out because it is taking anywhere from four, six, eight thousand gallons of water to put these cars out and our engines only carry one thousand. A lot of times they just let them burn out if they are away from other structures.”
