Lawmakers in New Jersey are considering a bill that would require firefighters and emergency medical technicians to be specially trained about the risks of electric vehicle fires as well as the best ways to extinguish them.
One of the bill’s prime sponsors, Sen. Ed Durr, says that the state urgently needs to protect the drivers and passengers of electric vehicles as they become more common and New Jersey sets new mandates for green transportation. The senator was inspired by the death of a veteran correctional officer to introduce the bill, alongside a second that would establish an annual budget from the Board of Public Utilities to pay for the required training.
In May, Daniel Sincavage died inside his burning Tesla after it hit trees in Cumberland County. It took firefighters 90 minutes to extinguish the inferno, using 30,000 gallons of water in the process.
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“This is an area that needs to be addressed if we’re going to be promoting electric vehicles,” Durr told the New Jersey Monitor. “This is a bill that’s for the public good, and it shouldn’t be a partisan issue.”
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has set a goal to cut pollution by requiring all new cars sold by 2030 to be electric. The state is also electrifying its own fleet and will spend $45 million to install electric school buses throughout the state.
Currently, electric vehicles only account for a small proportion of vehicles in New Jersey. In fact, of the 6 million cars registered in the state, just 47,830 of them were electric as of June. Nevertheless, New Jersey Policemen’s Benevolent Association Local 105 union president, William Sullivan, believes more need to be done to prepare firefighters and medical personnel for how to best deal with electric vehicle fires.
