One of the very few times in my life that I was actually on fire happened while trying to extinguish a car fire. I was using the haligan bar to pop the hood open when my newbie fellow firefighter suddenly turned the nozzle off. The resulting view from inside my SCBA and Astra suit was quite a spectacle as a small stream of burning liquid shot out of the engine compartment hit me in the stomach and started working its way up (Thank god for Nomex!). At that point, someone else grabbed the hose, put me out, and then extinguished the original fire. Luckily I wasn't hurt. When the guy who turned off the hose was asked why he did it, his reply was that he didn't want to get me wet! <img src="images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> <img src="images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> <img src="images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

As other folks have already said. If your car catches fire just get out and get away. If I had been Joe Citizen trying to put out his own car I would have been in serious trouble.

Chris

Martin:

I am just curious since I've been out of firefighting for a few years. How do you address a hybrid vehicle after it has been extinguished in order to prevent a re-ignition? With a conventional car we (as everyone else) were taught to remove the battery or at least the cables as part of our salvage procedure. I'm not sure if I would want to attempt that with 500 volts and a high amperage.

Chris

Problem is we dont' have an Standard Operating Guideline as of yet for the Hybrids. We're also facing Nickle Metal Hydride batteries, which are as nasty as you can imagine. We're not sure WHAT we're going to do if we get one of these! I'd be concerned that at 500 volts and 200 amps, any cuts we get would basically result in an arc-fired blast furnace, unless there's some sort of current limiter, and even that you can't trust.

I'd be surprised that there aren't safety systems built in the hybrids like those in the HID lights to shut it down. Even so there are fuses and batteries are still quite heavy so the battery box(s) are quite sturdy built so in a worst case accident the battery box should still stay intact and a fuse will pop if a wire shorts somewhere. I was in a shop when another tech popped a fuse in a big UPS while changing batteries (he hooked them up backwards because the UPS maker decided to use red for - and balck for +). A 300A fuse blowing makes quite a loud pop and your mental reaction makes you feel like you have just been electrocuted even when you haven't.

>>he hooked them up backwards because the UPS maker decided to use red for - and balck for +

Must have been a retired accountant <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Back when I was a dumb private in the army, I hooked a generator up backwards for precisely that reason. It was obvious to me that everyone in the world used red for - and black for + ; why should a generator be any different? <img src="images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

I forgot I was dealing with engineers <img src="images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I confused a couple people to whom I gave jump starts to because I had to replace the 10year old rusty - battery cable in my truck and the replacement was red. So I would pop the hood and they would stare for a minute at the two red wires until I took the cables and hooked them up <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

In the AC world, black is hot, not ground. In the car world red is positive and hot. In the telecom world of -48VDC, what color code do you follow? You can use red for positive, black for negative, black will be hot and red ground. NO way to avoid confusing at least half the people all the time!

For the car, I have a set of safety jumpers that have a heavy connector in the middle and an LED on each connector. To use, the cables are pulled apart, each end clamped onto pos and neg, and when both LEDs light you know you have the correct polarity and it is relatively safe to connect the two cars by plugging the jumper cable back together. This also makes the last connection farther from either battery and any probable hydrogen buildup.

Do what some others do - for DC stuff - Black is always supposed to be "ground". In a lot of military stuff, +5v is red - Other voltages will have other colors, and I'll be darned if I can remember them 15 years later
You'll see Orange, Purple, Blue etc - each is a DIFFERENT voltage - ALL are referenced to that nice black wire

The nice thing about standards is there are so many <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

AC: Black = hot, white = neutral, green or bare usually ground, red usually for three way switches and such
DC: Black = ground, red = 12v unless its computers which then:
computers: black = ground, red = 5v, yellow = 12v, -5,-12,etc others
then network:
T568A : White/green,green/white,white/orange,blue/white,white/blue,orange/white,white/brown,brown/white
T568B : White/ornage,orange/white,white/green,blue/white,white/blue,green/white,white/brown,brown/white
then home phone: Tip = green, Red = green, line 2 black and yellow, line three blue and white
then business/telco 25 pair which I'm not going to bother to type out <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
EIA 561 rs232, etc standards, such fun <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />