Over the last decade, the conversation around fire safety in commercial buildings has largely focused on construction materials, compartmentation, and evacuation strategies. These remain critical considerations. However, a quieter and arguably more profound shift is now underway — one driven not by how buildings are constructed, but by how energy is stored and used within them.

Lithium-ion battery technology has become embedded across modern operations. From warehouse handling equipment and automated logistics systems to backup power supplies, e-mobility devices, and waste streams, these batteries are now commonplace in environments that were never originally designed to accommodate their unique failure characteristics.

This transition raises an important question for fire safety professionals:

Are we still applying twentieth-century fire models to twenty-first-century energy hazards?

From Passive Fuel to Stored Energy

Traditional fire risk assessment has been built around the interaction of three familiar elements — ignition sources, combustible materials, and oxygen. In most scenarios, fuels are passive until something causes them to burn.

Lithium-ion batteries do not follow this pattern.

They are self-contained energy systems. Under certain conditions — damage, overheating, manufacturing defect, or poor charging control — they can enter what is known as thermal runaway: a self-accelerating chemical reaction capable of producing intense heat, flammable gases, and re-ignition even after suppression.

In simple terms, the hazard is no longer just what surrounds the fire — it may originate from within the technology itself.

A Risk Introduced Gradually, Not Designed Intentionally

One of the challenges in managing lithium-ion risk is that it rarely appears as a single, obvious change to a building. Instead, it is introduced incrementally:

 

  • A fleet of electric forklifts replaces diesel units.
  • Charging stations are added to improve operational efficiency.
  • Automated systems bring battery-powered equipment deeper into storage areas.
  • Damaged consumer batteries begin appearing in recycling streams.

 

Each step is logical. Each improves productivity or sustainability. Yet collectively they introduce a distributed network of stored energy into environments where fire strategies may never have been revisited.

In many facilities, these developments have occurred operationally rather than strategically — meaning the fire risk profile has evolved without a corresponding reassessment of assumptions.

Why Conventional Protection Still Matters — But May Not Be Enough

It is important to be clear: traditional fire protection measures remain essential. Detection, compartmentation, and suppression systems continue to save lives and property.

However, lithium-ion incidents can behave differently:

 

  • Rapid escalation before visible flame development.
  • Extended cooling requirements rather than simple extinguishment.
  • Potential for re-ignition hours or days later.
  • Environmental consequences linked to firefighting runoff.

 

These factors can stretch emergency response, disrupt business continuity, and introduce regulatory considerations that extend beyond fire safety into environmental management.

The Waste and Recycling Interface — The Least Controlled Environment

While much attention is given to lithium-ion use in logistics and transport, one of the highest-risk environments may be at the end of the battery lifecycle.

In waste handling and recycling facilities, batteries often arrive damaged, undeclared, or embedded within mixed waste. Mechanical processing can expose cells to crushing or puncture, creating ignition scenarios that are difficult to predict or engineer out through design alone.

This highlights that lithium-ion fire risk is not confined to where batteries are used — but also where they are discarded.

Insurance and Industry Are Already Adapting

Interestingly, adaptation is already happening — often led by insurers and risk engineers rather than regulation.

Requirements around charging arrangements, storage separation, and monitoring are increasingly appearing in underwriting assessments. This suggests the market is recognising a shift in risk even where formal guidance remains generalised.

Towards an Expanded View of Fire Risk Assessment

The emergence of lithium-ion technology does not mean abandoning established fire safety principles. Rather, it requires expanding them.

Fire risk assessment may now need to consider:

 

  • The presence and distribution of energy storage systems.
  • How and where batteries are charged.
  • Operational management of damaged or end-of-life units.
  • Environmental implications of suppression activities.
  • The relationship between fire safety and organisational resilience.

 

In essence, fire safety is evolving from managing combustion to also managing stored energy.

A Transitional Moment for the Profession

Every generation of fire safety professionals faces a moment where emerging technology reshapes the boundaries of risk. For previous decades it was plastics, high-bay storage, or complex building geometries.

Today, electrification and energy storage may represent that next transition.

Recognising this shift early allows us to adapt methodologies, guidance, and professional thinking before incidents force the change upon us.

The buildings themselves may not look dramatically different — but what they contain, and how that content behaves under failure conditions, certainly is.