Lithium battery fires being lit to tackle rubbish truck blazes

Auckland Council is deliberately setting controlled fires inside rubbish trucks to try and better understand and mitigate the dangers posed by lithium-ion batteries in household waste.

The council says the batteries, commonly found in e-bikes, smartphones, and e-scooters, were responsible for a growing number of fires during bin collection runs.

Fourteen fires had been recorded so far this year, matching the total for all last year.

Senior waste operations collections safety specialist Lyndon Collie said all batteries could combust, generating extreme heat and sometimes an explosion.

"It doesn't matter if it's a small battery, big battery, flat, fully charged, they still go off the same way."

Testing was taking place in partnership with the University of Auckland and Fire and Emergency at a fire rescue facility in Taumarunui.

Rubbish truck driver Michael Lal, who experienced a battery fire three months ago, said it was "quite scary".

"The fire was behind me, I was worried about myself and the surroundings and also this is a big truck as well, and where I dumped the load there was residential homes around."

Drivers were currently directed to dump rubbish in a safe place such as a cul-de-sac or a car park before emergency services arrived.

Auckland University professor Saeid Baroutian said lithium batteries were still showing up in household waste and starting fires despite being banned from kerbside bins.

The gases that blazes involving batteries produce were "highly toxic", he said.

"We found that they are even more than 30 times higher than what is considered safe for humans and they stay even when the fire is put off."

Collie said the research was looking at how fires could be detected sooner.

"Then its how we address, how we fight that fire, do we do it outside, do we do it inside and which product do we use?"

A second round of testing was planned for November when a new smoke detection system might be trialled.