McGoldrick was encountering fires like this more and more often. The previous year, he says, several rowhouses were badly burned after overcharged lithium-ion batteries in racing drones ignited inside. In another nearby incident, old lithium-ion biomedical devices at a scrapyard got soaked in a rainstorm and combusted.
The Tesla fire felt like a breaking point. “We were like, ‘Okay, this is just too many incidents in a short amount of time,’” McGoldrick recalls. He went in search of someone who could help his company get better at responding to fires in lithium-ion batteries. He found Patrick Durham.
Durham is the owner of (and mustache behind) StacheD Training, one of a growing number of private companies helping first responders learn how to deal with lithium-ion battery safety, including electric-vehicle fires.
Although there isn’t solid data on the frequency of EV battery fires, it’s no secret to EV makers that these fires are happening. Yet the manufacturers offer no standardized steps on how to fight them or avoid them in the first place, leaving first responders scrambling to search through each car’s emergency response guide—something that’s hard to do when you’re standing in front of an immolating vehicle.
In this void, Durham offers a wealth of resources to first responders, from easy-to-follow video tutorials to hours-long in-person workshops. In 2024 alone, Durham says he trained approximately 2,000 first responders around the country. As more people buy EVs, in part to help address climate change, the need for this training has only grown; in less than two years, Durham’s YouTube channel has attracted almost 30,000 subscribers. (The US doesn’t currently collect data on the frequency or causes of EV fires, but this year the US Fire Administration and the Fire Safety Research Institute are rolling out a new data collection system for fire departments.)
A circumspect man with a shaved head, brown eyes, and a thick horseshoe mustache framing his mouth, Durham previously worked as a mechanical engineer developing battery boxes for EVs. He is also a volunteer firefighter, and in 2020 he offered his first training on fires in lithium-ion batteries to his local department. From there, his reputation spread by word of mouth. Today, StacheD Training is Durham’s full-time work. He’s also the captain of his local volunteer fire department in Troy, Michigan.
As more EVs hit the road, what worries Durham most isn’t just the growing likelihood of battery fires—it’s their intensity. “The severity of the fire is significant compared to a regular vehicle fire,” he says.
“The traditional car fires that you and I grew up with—the majority of those always start in the engine compartment,” says Jim Stevenson, a fire chief from rural Michigan who has taken Durham’s training. “So we basically get there, we pop the car hood, and then we put out the fire from there, and if it gets into the inner compartment of the car? Not a big deal. You spray it down with the hose, and it’s out in no time.” With EV fires, Stevenson says, “it’s just a completely different monster.”
