Tabletop Tuesday: Edition 7 - There's an EV on Fire in Your Parking Garage

Jun 20

Here's something I've learned from years of managing buildings and running emergency exercises.

The scenarios that catch teams most off guard aren't the dramatic ones. They're the ones that feel unlikely until they're not - the ones nobody scheduled a drill for because they seemed too rare, too specific, or too far outside the normal response playbook.

An EV fire is that scenario right now. The codes are still catching up. The tactics are still evolving. Most departments don't have standardized guidance yet and most buildings haven't had the pre-incident planning conversation that makes the difference when one of these actually happens.

Here's what I believe strongly: the best emergency response doesn't happen during the emergency. It happens in the 45-minute exercise nobody wanted to schedule.

Every experienced leader I know has a version of this story. The incident that went sideways. The vendor gap nobody knew existed. The communication failure that was entirely preventable. The decision that took 20 minutes because nobody had talked it through in advance.

Tabletop drills don't eliminate those moments. But they compress them from 20 minutes of real time confusion into 5 minutes of practiced decision making. That's the gap between a controlled incident and a chaotic one.

The teams that handle these well aren't calmer by nature. They've practiced the decisions before they needed to make them.

Welcome to Tabletop Tuesday - a recurring format where I drop a real building emergency scenario, walk through the decision framework, and surface the gaps that only show up when you actually try to answer the question.

The Scenario

It's 2:31pm on a Friday. Your security desk calls. A vehicle in your parking garage - an EV plugged into one of your charging stations is actively on fire. Smoke is filling the area. The vehicle parked next to it is showing heat damage to the paint. The charging station appears undamaged but is still connected a couple feet away. There are approximately 40 other vehicles on that floor. 911 has been called by a bystander. Your fire department's ETA is six minutes.

What does your team do in the six minutes before the fire department arrives?

What Makes an EV Fire Different - This Is Not a Typical Vehicle Fire

Before you can run this drill effectively, your team needs to understand why EV fires behave differently from everything else they've been trained on. This isn't a knowledge exercise - it's operational context that changes every decision your team makes in those six minutes.

Thermal Runaway

When an EV battery enters thermal runaway, it generates its own heat and oxygen internally. That means it will continue burning even without external fuel. Standard extinguishers - CO2, dry chemical, foam - will not stop a thermal runaway fire. They may knock down visible flames temporarily. The battery will reignite.

The only agent that effectively manages a lithium ion battery fire is massive, continuous water application - thousands of gallons in some cases - applied directly to the battery pack over an extended period. This is a fire department operation. It is not a building team operation.

Reignition Risk

A battery that appears extinguished can reignite hours later - sometimes 24 hours after the fire department clears the scene. Your team needs to know this before the incident so you don't declare it over before the fire department does.

Proximity Risk

The concern isn't only the burning vehicle. It's the vehicles adjacent to it and the structural elements above it. Heat transfer to concrete and steel in a confined structure, combined with the extended burn duration of a battery fire, creates a different exposure than a standard vehicle fire in an open lot.

The Six Minute Window - What Your Team Does Before FD Arrives

The decisions in these six minutes are not complex. But they have to be preassigned, because improvised role distribution during an active fire costs time you don't have.

Evacuate the immediate area

Anyone within 50 feet of the burning vehicle needs to move - on foot, not in vehicles. The instinct to drive vehicles out of adjacent spaces is understandable but there is not time to track those owners down. And, the area is likely not safe for vehicle movement. Security directs people away from the burning vehicle immediately, without waiting for confirmation on next steps.

Address the charging station power

If your team has access to the electrical shutoff for the EV charging stations and can reach it safely - without approaching the burning vehicle - disconnect it. If there is any uncertainty about access or safety: do not approach. Wait for the fire department. The station remaining connected is a fire department concern, not a building team one, the moment it requires proximity to an active fire.

Clear and hold the access route

Your fire department needs a clear, unobstructed path from the street to the burning vehicle. No vehicles moving in that direction. Security positions at the entrance to the lot and holds it. Nobody drives in. One person is designated to physically meet the fire department at the lot entrance and walk them directly to the vehicle. Not point. Walk.

Account for people

Is anyone still in that section of the lot? A visual sweep of the 50 foot radius around the vehicle. Security does not approach the burning vehicle or the adjacent one showing heat damage. This sweep is peripheral, not proximate. If you have cameras have a team member review for any details that can help the fire department.

Your role in an EV fire is evacuation, access clearance, and getting the fire department to the vehicle as fast as possible. Nobody approaches the burning vehicle.

What This Drill Reveals About Your Building

Run this scenario with your full team - property management, security, and engineering for 45 minutes. Here's what will surface.

Do you know exactly where the electrical shutoff for your EV charging stations is located and can you reach it safely during an active fire without approaching the burning vehicle?
Has your fire department ever walked your EV charging area for pre-incident planning? If not, do you know how to request that walkthrough? Most fire departments will do it. Most buildings haven't asked.
Does your security team know not to approach or attempt to suppress an EV battery fire and do they understand why the reignition risk means the incident isn't over when visible flames are out?
Do you have a clear protocol for clearing the access route to the fire location before the fire department arrives? Does security know the difference between directing traffic away and physically escorting FD to the vehicle?
Do you know the reignition risk timeline and have a protocol for the 24-hour window after the scene is cleared?

The tabletop doesn't have to be perfect. It has to surface the answers to those questions before the event does.

Before the Fire Happens - Where the Real Work Is

This scenario starts with charger placement - a decision that was made before you were managing the building, or before the chargers were installed, or both.

EV chargers should be positioned with fire department access in mind from the first day. Can a ladder truck reach the vehicle from the access road? Is the charger location close enough to building structure that a thermal runaway event creates structural risk? Are chargers positioned where vehicles can be separated from adjacent cars quickly if needed?

If you have existing chargers and haven't walked the site with your local fire department to talk through access and response - schedule that conversation this week. Most fire departments will do a pre-incident planning walk for properties with EV infrastructure. This is exactly the kind of proactive relationship that pays off when something goes wrong.

Know what suppression infrastructure is near your chargers. A standard sprinkler head above an EV charging space will activate in a fire but it will not stop thermal runaway. It will suppress adjacent combustibles. That matters for the structure. It doesn't stop the battery.

The Physical Drill Setup

Print your parking lot layout. Mark the charger locations, the nearest structure, egress routes, and fire department access points. Mark the electrical shutoff locations. Lay it flat on the conference table and use game pieces or coins to represent your team, the burning vehicle, and the fire department approach. Move the pieces as the scenario unfolds.

This physical element forces the team to think spatially - where is security relative to the charging station shutoff? How long does it actually take to walk from the lobby to the lot entrance? Where does the fire department enter and which direction do they turn?

The map makes abstract role assignments concrete. People stop saying "someone would clear the entrance" and start saying "that's Marcus - he's at the security desk and the lot entrance is 40 steps to his right."

Have the Emergency Action Plan on the table

Not to read from it - to test it. Does your EAP address EV fires specifically? Does it name who makes the call on the charging station shutoff? Does it include your fire department's non emergency line for pre-incident planning conversations?

Do a physical walkthrough first

Before the table exercise, walk the route. Start at the security desk. Walk to the charging station shutoff. Walk to the fire department access point. Walk the perimeter of the 50-foot evacuation radius.

Most teams discover two things on this walk: the shutoff location isn't labeled, and the fire department access route has something parked in it.

The Debrief - Three Questions, Kept Simple

Immediately after the tabletop - run a debrief.

What worked? Where did roles feel clear, what felt automatic, where was there no hesitation?
What slowed us down? Where was there confusion about who makes the call, missing information, or a gap that only showed up when we walked through it?
What do we need before next time? One to three specific, actionable changes - not a policy rewrite. A shutoff location to label and map. A conversation with the fire department to schedule. An EAP update to assign.

If you found this newsletter interesting, consider checking out these past editions of this series:

Matt Faupel