The Fire Protection Podcast Episode 37 : Vehicle System Fire Protection and the growth of Electric Vehicles

EPISODE SUMMARY

One of the hottest topics in fire protection these days is how to put out Lithium-Ion battery fires.  It seems that every week in the news, there is some sort of fire regarding these power sources.  Vistra Energy (California), one of the world’s largest lithium-ion batteries, has had two recent fires.  Luckily enough, the second was extinguished by a water suppression system.  Last week a vehicle cargo ship (Felicity Ace) in the Atlantic was still dealing with fires onboard stemming from electric vehicles in transport from Europe.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Drew Slocum:  

This is episode 37 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. Today, my guest is Bill Jolbert from Amerex Fire.  Bill lives in Buffalo, New York. Get into some upstate New York stuff. But mainly wanted to have him on because he’s a sales director for Amerex for vehicle suppression and detection. So it’s a super niche market for VE vehicle fire suppression and detection part. You know, there are only a few companies that get into it. There are a lot of off-road vehicles left for mining, forestry, and other things, as well as vehicles for electric buses, as well as trash trucks, and waste management. So, really cool to talk about this with Bill. I thought it was a great topic because it is a hot topic in the industry with lithium-ion battery fire protection, um, with how to put out electric vehicle fires or just electric battery fires.

 
Amerex has got a really cool way. They’re starting to do that and wanted to highlight it since it’s one of the big topics. So, appreciate Bill for being on, and hope you enjoy the podcast. Just a quick plug for some upcoming shows, Inspect Point, as well as myself. We’ll be at all three NAFED Shows in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and Indianapolis, and the National Association of Fire Equipment Distributors—a great time to see everybody, obviously with everything, kind of everybody getting back out there. So I will speak at all three events, the final day and the second day, and I believe Inspect Point will be there. It’ll be a great time seeing everyone as well as all the manufacturers out there. So, please stop by if you’re in the area at that time. Hope you enjoyed the podcast. Thanks. All right. All right. We are live here in the snowy, snowy northeast. Welcome, Bill. Welcome, Bill to the podcast today. I know you’re here in Western. Are you in Western New York today? 

Bill Jolbert:

That’s Correct. Yeah. I’m in my office in beautiful Buffalo, New York.

Drew Slocum:

<laugh>. All right. Right. I’m in southeastern Connecticut, and hopefully, some of the snow is melting outside, so welcome to the podcast, Bill Jolbert.

Bill Jolbert:

Thanks. Yes.

Drew Slocum:

<laugh>, I had to ask you before, but we’ve never met. I’ve known a lot of the Amerex folks, you know, since we partnered with them last year, and I am really excited. Some of the leaders mentioned the topic of vehicle suppression and vehicle gas detection, and we’ll get into it with the electrical vehicles and everything. Still, it’s a really cool topic. We’ll get that toward the end. But, yeah, you’re Amerex’s director of vehicle sales, and, yep. I guess, let you know, tell the audience it is all over the world and everything. Please give us a little background of who you are and where you came from.

Bill Jolbert:

Sure. You can see I’m wearing my old man glasses ’cause I’ve been around for a while, and the eyes are getting a little shot, but, uh, no, this is my 35th year in the industry. Uh, I started out working for a distributor in Buffalo, New York, you know, doing distributor things. I started, like most people in this industry, filling fire extinguishers. Uh, yeah. So, you know, my background with, uh, the dis distribution side of the business is all types of fire suppression, kitchen, industrial, clean agents, any fire suppression system out there, we worked on. And so I have a pretty strong background on that. And then the second half of my career has been working for different manufacturers strictly on vehicle systems. Uh, okay. So I, I worked for a, uh, for a manufacturer for eight years or seven years. Then I joined Amerex in 2010 and 2011. Sorry. And I’ve been with Amerex ever since. And so the last 18 years of my experience have been directly 100% on vehicle fire protection.

Drew Slocum:

Wow. Wow. That’s super niche right there. Vehicle fire. It is very niche.

Bill Jolbert:

Niche. That’s Correct. <laugh>

Drew Slocum:

Job security in that market. <laugh>

Bill Jolbert:

Yeah. There, there are not a ton of people that do it. And very, even few do it well; even fewer do it well. So, yeah. Right. Yeah, it is a niche market for sure.

Drew Slocum:

So, Amerex, obviously, they’re big on the portal will side on the kitchen suppression side. What I mean, there are only a few that even do vehicle suppression, right? 

Bill Jolbert:

Right, it depends on where you’re talking about. You know, in the US, three or four strong companies. And then once you get outside of the US responsible for global sales, you know, different areas have different competition. You know, in Europe, there are a lot of manufacturers there that are mostly focused on that market. And you get into other countries. And so, depending on where in the world you are, it depends on who your competition is.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, totally. So, when you say vehicle suppression, I guess what vehicles are, what were your vehicles are you talking about? And um, you know, because, you know, there’s a lot of different vehicles out there, right? From aircraft to obviously land craft and all that.

Bill Jolbert:

Yeah, so the terminology that I use is anything that’s an off-road piece of equipment. Like a large haul truck or dozer, you know, something that’s off-road equipment I refer to as machines. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, anything that’s over the road could be a bus, garbage truck, those kinds of things I would call a vehicle. So that’s the terminology that I use. Amerex is really very unique in that we play in all of the vehicles and machine markets.Most of the other manufacturers focus on off-road, or they focus on over-the-road, and we’re in all of it, which is great because it keeps me very busy, and there’s never a dull moment. So.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah.

Bill Jolbert:

Yeah. So if you look at the key markets on the off-road side, you have, in the US, it’s the waste industry’s very big mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative> mining industry. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the big, if you’ve ever seen the Modern Marvel show. They always have mining equipment on there because it’s big, expensive, and cool looking.

Drew Slocum:

Mining, yeah. The tires are, you know, 12 feet tall kind of thing. Exactly. Right.

Bill Jolbert:

<laugh>. Yeah. So those are very expensive pieces of equipment, and it’s very important to keep those pieces of equipment running because the cost of downtime is incredible. So, mining, forestry, agriculture, you know, pretty much any machine working out there with an engine in it, we can protect it over the road. Buses are a big market for us. But there are several different levels of buses, or not levels, but bus markets. The transit industry is the biggest market as far as requiring fire protection. And then there’s the school bus, which is really a kind of an emerging market. There’s no consistency. The rules are developed by each individual state, and most of them do not require protection. There are some that do, but they are interesting. For the most part, it’s kind of the wild west as far as requirements in the school bus market. 

Drew Slocum:

That was the question. Yeah, that was a question I had: you know, you have all these different vehicles, whether off-road or on-road. You have NFPA 17A, which handles wet and dry chem, which I know from my past and the different agents that are used on some of these vehicle fires. But, is there an NFPA or UL or whatever code, or is it more like OEM based, or you said it’s state-based?

Bill Jolbert:

Yeah, for vehicles and machines in general, there’s really no requirement for the most part, except for mining. MHA has requirements for some mining applications, but if you get into the bus industry or the waste industry, those kinds of equipment, there’s no specific code or requirement. The cost of downtime drives those markets. They’re driven by and could be insurance drivers. Like in many forestry applications, I know you cannot even get insurance unless you have fire protection. So insurance is a driver in certain industries. So for the people that are doing vehicle systems, and for me, we really have to sell the value of fire suppression and the return on the investment. Right,

Drew Slocum:

Right. And I guess if, you know, the piece of machinery is doing is making the company money, right? Forestry, mining, and even waste to a certain extent, right? Those are providing value money. But when you get into the buses, what’s more, it seems like that’s more of a public safety issue than it is cost. Am I, am I wrong in that?

Bill Jolbert:

Unfortunately, the cost is always an issue, but yeah, it’s, you’re right. As far as the, the transit buses, it’s a, uh, you know, if you have a piece of off-road equipment, you have one driver that you have to get off of that machine and get him to safety on a bus, you may have 30, 40 people on there that you have to mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you have to buy time to get them off and get off safely. And then, if a bus starts on fire in the middle of New York City, it’s going to get a lot of attention. They don’t want attention. So, you know, that plays a part in it as well. But yeah, if you look at vehicle and suppression in general for vehicles, what is our goal? What are we trying to accomplish by putting fire suppression on these?

And our goal is, is to save lives, you know? Right. If it’s a haul truck, you have one operator that you have to get off there, but that operator may be 25 feet up in the air, and his exit right route may be right in front of the engine. So, yep. You know, our goal here is to suppress that fire, get them off the machine, and get ’em safe. If it’s a bus like we just talked about, and they have 30, 40 people, we have to buy time to get them all off safely.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, sure, sure,

Bill Jolbert:

Sure. 

Drew Slocum:

And that’s what fire protection usually is, but sometimes it comes down to the dollars. And in this case, especially on the off-road side, you can definitely see that. What do the fires look like? I mean, most of it seems like it’s a big diesel. Is it diesel or, you know, I guess some of it could be gasoline too.  Then I know some buses are compressed gas, propane, or natural gas.

Bill Jolbert:

Yeah. So the majority of the protected vehicles out there are diesel and gasoline. We also protect some school buses are propane. So, we do protect different fueled vehicles, and they all are different, and they have different hazards. But in general, the diesel fires, I would say the majority of those types of fires come from a broken hydraulic line or a fuel line that sprays, you know, flammable liquid onto hot engine components.

Drew Slocum:

Right.

Bill Jolbert:

Igniting and that, but, you know, there’s obviously an electrical issue, things that can occur alternators starters. Sure. You know, there are different types of fires that can occur.

Drew Slocum:

Well, all right. So I guess, you know, and I know Amerex got the Kodiak brand. How do, I guess, just explain to everybody if a hydraulic line, you know, cracked and broke, sprayed on the engine obviously flares up? What is the process of that system going off?

Bill Jolbert:

Sure. First of all, when we look inside an engine compartment, there’s no way we can predict where a hose will break or where the fuel will spray ’cause you just can’t mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So when you’re looking at it as a hazard, you have to make the assumption that, you know, the fuel and the fire can be anywhere, or the fuel can be anywhere. Right. Uh, and when that fuel is running up against the side of a bulkhead wall and onto the ground, that’s an issue, but it’s not a fire issue. It’s only when the fuel hits a heat source that it becomes a problem; then, it ignites, spreads, and causes chaos there. So Sure, sure. We’re, we’re looking at the hazard area. We’re really looking for ignition points, things that are going to start a fuel on the fire, and we’re gonna protect, and we’re gonna do it with detection, and we’re going to put, uh, the chemical agent onto those specific hazards.

There are different styles of detection, heat detection, you know, it’s been pretty much the industry standard for 40-some-odd years. Linear heat detection. Yep. All it is two stainless steel wires with heat-sensitive insulation over the top and those wires are twisted. So when the temperature reaches about 350 degrees Fahrenheit, the insulation melts off, the wires touch together, short out, and send a signal to the control panel that there’s a fire, then there’s spot heat detection. It doesn’t work the exact same way, but it is detecting heat, and then there are some optical and infrared-type detections that don’t. 

Drew Slocum:

Wow. Okay.

Bill Jolbert:

Yeah, they don’t need to see the heat; they need to see the fire. They’re, picking up the wavelengths coming off of the fire. So those devices need to see the fire to work, whereas the heat detectors must be in the heat to feel ’em.

Drew Slocum:

So that’s Gotcha. 

Bill Jolbert:

You know, that’ll influence where you’re gonna put the detection.

Drew Slocum:

Gotcha, gotcha. Now, is most of it still linear, and maybe some of the high dollars? I guess vehicles are moving more toward advanced detection.

Bill Jolbert:

It’s pretty standard to linear detection cable for a variety of reasons. One, it’s a lower cost, but the other thing is it handles those rough environments very well. The vibration and the shock of things and the temperature. Yep. It, it handles that very, very well. You know,  what the cable doesn’t have is a brain. So it doesn’t know the difference between a short, from a fire, or short because it’s rubbed up against a piece of metal and rubbed through. So, Amerex, many years ago, came up with a detection cable with a stainless steel spring over the top to help, buy some time, and identify those areas before it actually becomes an unwanted discharge. 

Drew Slocum:

Oh, wow. Okay. Okay, Obviously, nobody wants unwanted discharges. No, no, they don’t. Right. So, yeah, that’s interesting. I mean, you see YouTube or whatever, some of these big vehicle fires. I guess if you have a vehicle fire or an incident,  the system goes off. Is it putting out dry chemicals or wet chemicals? What is it putting out?

Bill Jolbert :

We offer several different approaches. You know, the basic dry chemical system has been around again since the inception of vehicle suppression. And the reason that dry chemical works so well is it, you know if you look at a typical engine compartment, you know, a lot of obstructions and moving parts and things like that. Yeah. The dry chemical and the turbulence inside that compartment helped circulate that dry chemical to get into those hidden areas.

Drew Slocum:

Oh, okay.

Bill Jolbert:

It’s really effective at finding those hidden spots where fuel will hide, so even today, dry chemical still has the fastest knockdown ability of, any agent out there to put out a fire.

Drew Slocum:

Gotcha, gotcha.

Bill Jolbert:

Uh, people are also using wet chemical agents. The wet chemical does provide the advantage of cooling. That is a big advantage where dry chemical does not provide cooling, wet chemical does. But wet chemical doesn’t find those hidden areas the same way. It just, it cannot, you know, you have a very fine spray that, as it’s heated up, it kind of pulls together, and the droplets become bigger. And when they hit those heated surfaces, they have a tendency just to drop and roll rather than deflect and get into all the areas. So yeah, the wet chemical has the advantage of cooling, and the dry chemical has the advantage of fire knockdown.  

Drew Slocum:

Are there any gaseous agents out there? Like clean agent or any of that that’s used?  I mean, you need a volume compartment to hold that gas.

Bill Jolbert:

There are, but let me talk about, the other option we have here: a combination of dry and wet chemicals. So we offer a dry ICS system and discharge dry and wet chemicals. So you get the benefit of both agents. So the dry chemical is quickly knocking that fire down and finding those hidden spots. And then, the wet chemical is put on those superheated areas to cool them down to reduce the chance that the fire could reflash afterward.

Drew Slocum):

Gotcha.

Bill Jolbert:

So clean agents, we do offer. There are clean agents out there. We have several options for the bus industry, and we’re looking into mm-hmm. <affirmative> using that in other industries as well. We have a product called AVT, which is a proprietary blend; it’s an Amerex proprietary blend. Yep. And it’s used again, strictly on, at this point, strictly, on buses. And we’ve got third-party approvals for that as well. And then we also offer the product AV T, a clean agent gas widely available. So, we do offer some clean agents for certain applications.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. I could see; obviously, there are advantages to that ‘cuz there’s no residue and, you know, the clean agents are pretty good, but, you know, you need a volume, you know, you need the volume of that. I guess it’s probably a local application more than anything. 

Bill Jolbert:

It’s over-flooding, so you’re limited on where you can use it and how you can use it. But it’s still very effective.

Drew Slocum:

Interesting. I gotta give compliments, I don’t know if, if Susan Ray’s on here right now, but,  whoever designed the Kodiak branding <laugh>, I don’t know why I love the branding of it. <laugh>, it’s the bear with the claw marks through the name, and, you know, I’ve worked for Tyco and Ansel, and then I went over to Viking after that. But I am heavily involved with many of the manufacturers and really nerd out on many different products. Okay. But one of the things is, you know, how do you market the product? And I think it is a cool logo, catchy name, but I don’t know, I think it’s important in our, you know, weird fire protection world. So, uh, whoever created Kodiak – I love it.

Bill Jolbert:

I was part of a large team that helped develop that, so it was a team effort. Uh, but you know, Amerex has been the premier supplier in the bus market for many, many, many years. And, when I arrived about ten years ago, we decided we were gonna really work on growing the name recognition of our off-road products and develop some additional off-road products, which we did. Uh, we had this great system. We wanted to be able to bring it out there to people, let ’em know what’s, uh, about the product. So yeah, we went on a marketing campaign before the Mine Expo in 2016. After a lot of banging around, we decided on the Kodiak; we wanted a name that, or name and an image that reflected, our vehicle suppression products fast. Right. Uh, powerful, you know,

Drew Slocum:

Fierce. Yeah.

Bill Jolber:

And that’s where Kodiak came from. I can’t take any credit for the logo, though, although I agree. It is very cool.

Drew Slocum:

<laugh> You know, you gotta have fun with your job. Right. So, just a little cool thing I saw. So, um, you know, obviously, vehicle suppression’s big, How does that work on a bus? Cuz there are a lot of natural gas buses. So you have your clean agent, which you mentioned, but you probably have your regular dry chem for that. How do those fires happen with compressed gas?

Bill Jolbert:

Uh, it could be they, they do have, uh, they do have, they do have, uh, fires on them. Of course, they can be sure either from a leak from the combustible methane gas, or it could be from, you know, heated surfaces and that kind of things as well. 

Drew Slocum:

Gotcha.

Bill Jolbert:

What we do for compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquefied natural gas (LNG), particularly for buses, is we actually have a combustible methane detection system. So it is detecting a leak. So if there’s a CNG or LNG gas leak, we have detectors looking for that that will pick up that leak. And we identify two different levels. We identify a 20%, uh, level. 20% is 20% of the lower explosive limit. So when the mixture and air reach 20% of that lower explosive limit, we send a signal to the operator to say, Hey, you got a problem here when it gets worse. Ah, interesting. When it gets worse, when it gets up to 50%, when it’s halfway to that lower explosive limit, then it goes into full-blown alarm, significant gas alarms, relays, everything. Everything’s going saying, Hey, you got a really big here, get this thing pulled over. Get everyone off quickly. 

Drew Slocum:

Oh, wow. That’s interesting. I didn’t even know that it was working; it’s almost like a sniffer working on, you know, exactly certain percentage and then, and then alerts the, the driver.

Bill Jolbert:

Exactly. You know, because once that goes, it goes <laugh>.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don’t want that happening. So, would there be a suppression system on that if there is more? Or is it more detection only for that?

Bill Jolbert:

Uh, it’s pretty standard for buses to do fire suppression and gas detection.

Drew Slocum:

Okay. Okay. Okay.

Bill Jolbert:

On some smaller vehicles. There are a lot of natural gas trash trucks.

Drew Slocum:

Uh, yep.

Bill Jolbert:

And many of those may have just gas detection on those types of vehicles, but we certainly offer both, you know?

Drew Slocum:

Right, right.

Bill Jolbert:

We do a lot

Drew Slocum:

Of that’s interesting

Bill Jolbert:

We do a lot of gas detection on trash trucks. It’s really fairly interesting. You know, landfills, they capture their methane that’s released out of their landfills, they filter it, they get it ready, and they actually use it to fuel their municipal trash trucks,

So it’s really, it’s really a nice setup. Yeah. Yeah.

Drew Slocum:

Interesting. So they run off of methane? I did not know that. I thought it was more, I guess, natural gas.  

Bill Jolbert:

Gas, yeah. So they’re capturing it Right. Filtering it out and using it to drive their trucks.

Drew Slocum:

Wow. Wow. And that’s done at the municipality level? Or is waste management doing that?  

Bill Jolbert:

Yeah, I would say the larger companies are generally better funded. You know, if a local municipality is running a trash site, they probably don’t have the money to invest in something like that. But, so, you know, all your big, you know, waste Management Republic, you know, they have a lot of sites that do that.

Drew Slocum:

Interesting. Interesting. Yeah, I mean, that’s like a really cool PR thing to push out there for, like, just sustainability.  I don’t know. It’s really great. I never knew that. Well, speaking of sustainability, this is the big topic I wanted to talk to you about. You know, vehicle suppression has been around for a while, and diesel and gasoline, but, you know, electric vehicle (EV), and there’s a lot of issues. Probably the top three, you know, hot topics in fire protection is, is how to deal with these big lithium ion, battery fires and just, you know, as it’s growing, you know, in the federal US government obviously just favored that. So there’s gonna be more, more of that. You can see it, you know, you watched the Super Bowl, and there’s five new companies popping up, or five new vehicles popping up. Yeah. So, yeah. What is happening out there, you know  obviously, you’re heavily involved in the vehicle market. I don’t know, a few years down the road.

Bill Jolbert:

Yeah. So, so yeah, it is, the market is a changing, and it’s changing fast. Uh, you know, ten years ago, natural gas vehicles were the up-and-coming new technology, the clean technology, you know, mm-hmm. <affirmative>, many fleets, buses, and trucks were changing towards natural gas mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, uh, you know, then there was kind of a turn, I don’t know, this probably happened three or four years ago, maybe longer now, technology on the, you know, the battery technology changed and got better. So it became, it became more, uh, of a value. 

Drew Slocum:

It’s a cost thing. Yeah. It’s a cost.

Bill Jolbert:

Yep. You know, you have to recharge, and things like that, and all the technology had to develop, so it started many years ago, but really over the last couple of years that the push towards electric vehicles has grown really, really strong. And, you know, we see it every day. Every day you’re hearing about, uh, you know, fleets being changed and new requirements and money. Really, that’s a big thing. Federal money is being spent on this. And that helps to drive anything new.

Drew Slocum:

Right. Any, any industry, yeah. 

Bill Jolbert:

Yep. Yep. So as you can see, you know, we’re in all these different markets in forestry and buses and mining and this, and all of them are, you see the changes coming towards the vehicles, you know, probably no mm-hmm. <affirmative> stronger than in the transit in the bus industry that’s really driving. Okay. And that’s happening very quickly. As I said, it’s been around for a while, but the actual push has really grown strong. The vast majority of buses still sold today are diesel, but that number is changing. Okay. That number is changing rapidly. And probably over the next three years,  I don’t even wanna speculate, but I would say in the next three years, probably 70, 80% of all the new buses will be electric  – the ones that are being ordered. So, uh, sure. It’s changing that quickly, you know, from a fire suppression standpoint, you know, the lithium-ion batteries present a lot of challenges.

First of all, the chem, there are different chemistries. They’re not all exactly the same. So there are different chemistries that are involved. And really, the biggest thing is the construction of the batteries and the battery packs are different. So that provides different challenges as well. You know there’s been a significant effort in the fire protection industry to find a fire suppression solution to lithium-ion batteries and battery fires. Yep. Um, and let me tell you, as of today, nothing really exists that will put out a fire. No. And when you think about it, how can it be? You have a lithium-ion battery, which is its own energy source burning from the inside out. Yep. Can we knock the fire down? Put the fire out? Yeah. Temporarily, but then it will come back and keep coming back until the energy burns itself out, you know?

Amerex is no different. We started about three years ago looking for a solution and are still looking for a fire suppression solution. As I said, we can knock the fire down in some time. You know, we can do all that. But to actually extinguish one, it doesn’t exist. But in our efforts, we have some great engineers at Amerex. In their efforts of trying to find a fire suppression solution, they found that what was occurring, and this is through hundreds and hundreds of fire tests and different types of tests, they found that prior to a battery going into thermal runaway, the battery itself, in most cases, would admit a gas, a derivative of hydrogen gas that would come up from the batteries. We started looking at that investigating, and we looked at, you know, what we had and what, what could we do? And we developed an early warning system, an early detection warning system, so we actually can detect the battery going into thermal runaway before it happens. Interesting. And when you think about the applications, you think about a bus; if you could get three to four to five minutes of warning before it actually goes into flames, what can you do with that time?

Drew Slocum:

Right?

Bill Jolbert:

Right. You can save a lot of life, right? You know, the bus is driving 55 miles an hour down the road. You need that time to get that bus to a safe spot to get everyone off. So we actually Sure, we actually can do that. We have an early warning system that picks up those off-gases from the lithium-ion battery. <affirmative>, thermal runaway, and we can buy extra time for that vehicle to get people off safely.

Drew Slocum:

So it detects that, and the gas sensors that are detecting that hydrogen or whatever it is obviously alert it. Now, will that prevent fires as well? Obviously, early warning to get everybody safe, right? But is that gonna prevent the battery from going into runaway? You know, how often is that happening? Or is it still gonna be an issue?

Bill Jolbert:

I’m giving an answer I don’t like, and I’m gonna say it depends. Yeah. In some cases, it could,  right? By turning off the battery, you may be able to stop that process but not in all cases. Sure. You know so that it will depend on the situation. Is it a mechanical issue internally that’s causing it? Is it, you know, what, what is actually causing the battery? Is it because the battery’s being overheated? There are many, many different ways that a thermo runaway can occur, uh, or so, unfortunately, it depends.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. And, when Amerex brought this up as a topic,  it made perfect sense. You didn’t, you never want the battery to start on fire, right? No. You never want to get into that thermal runaway condition. So I think that’s, that’s a perfect solution right now. And it’s probably cost. I mean, yeah, there’s still some cost there, but I think, you know, and, and you know, Tesla and Rivian and for, they’re, they’re all putting out, you know, personal vehicles, which I think is, is still, you know, that’s an issue too. So I think there’s, you know, is there anything coming on the, on the personal side that, that you know of that, that, that can detect, you know, and send something to the driver? You know, I know buses are the focus, and I think that’s, that’s a great step, but is there anything going, you know, on the personal side,

Bill Jolbert:

Uh, you know, the, the private cars, uh, you know, uh, for the most part, the commercial injuries, certainly the technology that we’ve created can be used in that application. But it all comes down to cost, right? Um, the vehicle’s value versus the protection system’s cost. And remember, we’re, we’re trying to, to save multiple people here and 

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. Yeah.

Bill Jolbert:

Um, we don’t play that much in the private market, you know, the cars. Sure. But certainly, yep. The technology needs to be spread to that, to that.  

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. And as you innovate and create that solution, I think, you know, that’s only gonna, you know, show, show that you can prove it and, and, and have it there. I mean, I imagine having a, you know, I love Teslas. I know a lot of people that do. I don’t have one, but it’d be nice to, you know, if it’s charging, I don’t know, get, or when I’m driving, get an alert that, hey, it’s off-gassing and to shut it down or maybe automatic shutdown before it even happens. So I think there’s something there. And it’s a big problem in fire protection right now is how to do that.

Bill Jolbert:

As technology develops, the fire expression also has to develop.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

Bill Jolbert:

And we are also putting fire protection on those buses because there still are hazards within those electric buses, you know, the motors, propulsion systems. If you have a fire in those components, they’ll spread to the batteries and then cause, cause a runaway interesting for the batteries. So we are also providing suppression for those applications as well. Some of those battery packs may cost $75,000 to $100,000. And so if you can prevent a fire that started outside of that from spreading to that, obviously, there’s a financial return on being able to do that.

Drew Slocum:

Oh, totally. Yeah. And I think the same technology probably goes to the battery. You know, storage places where they’re, you know, they’re putting them, you know, and I know in New York City, they have big battery storage places for just, uh, keeping up with demand and everything. And I know they did, they have a fire, Phoenix had a fire, I forgot, but I either probably wasn’t that detection there, and it could have probably prevented, you know, obviously a huge loss. But, um, you know, that goes back to the whole power grid and everything too. So,

Bill Jolbert:

And so we’ve been talking about electric fields because that’s up-and-coming, and that’s the drive right now. But if we want to look beyond that, what’s the next thing after electric? The next thing is hydrogen and fuel cells. Those have been in development for many years, but it’s the same thing. Everybody thinks they’re great, no emissions, you know, they’re, they’re just much better for the environment. But the technology hasn’t caught up to it yet, but Right. You know, three years from now, maybe it has, you know. Yeah. And we’re ready for that. We’ve got the system and the hydrogen sensors for that as well.  

Drew Slocum:

We’re ready. Yeah. I mean, there’s plenty of hydrogen out there, so Yeah. You’re ready for it. And I, you know, everybody’s probably worried about, you know, liquid hydrogen, or is it probably in gas form? I don’t even know.

Bill Jolbert:

It’s liquified, but it, you know, if it’s released, it becomes a gas.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah. It’s interesting. I think you’re right. Electric will be around, and obviously, there are issues with batteries, but I think it’s, you know, it’s gonna keep pushing, and you guys are ready there. And you know, I’d love to, maybe in three years or whatever it is, it’d be interesting to see where electricity takes us. I have some good friends that work at Tesla now on the fire protection side. They went over there, which is really cool to see. Tesla’s, you know, investing in the fire side of it. So really cool to kind of see that and where it’s gonna take us. And, uh, again, it’s, it’s been,  no pun intended, a hot topic in the last year or so. 

Bill Jolbert:

Absolutely.

Drew Slocum:

Well, let’s wrap it up. What I usually do, I don’t know if you’ve heard any of my podcasts before, but I usually ask every guest something called a quick response round Oh boy. I ask them a couple of questions, and I didn’t tell you about it beforehand because I wanna make it truthful and all that. So, you know, so I’ll hit you with a couple of questions. You’re from Buffalo, everybody knows; it’s the home of the chicken wing, right? So <laugh>, do you prefer blue cheese or ranch with your chicken wings? It’s really not a question because if you choose anything other than blue cheese, you’re doing it wrong. <laugh>.

Bill Jolbert::

Okay. Okay. There’s, there’s no such thing as ranch with chicken wings. It’s just, it doesn’t exist.

Drew Slocum:

Well, it kind of caught out a few years ago, and my kids love it.  I’m just a blue cheese person or nothing. Right? You know? 

Bill Jolbert:

Yeah, no, I do. I do a lot of traveling in different parts of the world. They ask that question, and I just shake my head. I said, well, what are you doing? So <laugh>

Drew Slocum:

All right. Next question. You were in distribution before with a local fire equipment distributor. What was your favorite suppression system to work on? I don’t know if you were in the field or back in the shop, but in the field. What was your favorite system to work on? Hmm.

Bill Jolbert:

It was definitely not Kitchen Systems. I can tell you that <laugh> I did much of that in my day, but I always preferred industrial applications. I liked painting spray booths. I like, we did, back in the day, we did a lot of gas station systems when it was required in New York State. So depending on the weather, that was nice to work outside. It could be good, could be bad, right? Yeah. So, I preferred industrial systems. Those were my favorite.

Drew Slocum:

Uh, yeah, they’re fun. How do you? Is it a balloon test for those? How do you test the industrial systems?

Bill Jolbert:

Uh, there are different things. You take a cylinder you can just have, fill it with air, and fire off it. Or, I actually did one outside gas station system that made me, the fire marshal made us put a little bit of powder in the cylinder, so it was, he would see a little bit of powder go off, so, uh,

Drew Slocum:

Right, right.

Bill Jolbert):

Yeah. Unfortunately. Station hooked up the wrong gas.

Hooked up the wrong one. I know <laugh>. So, we actually had a little bit of a discharge there, so that was, uh, that was quite embarrassing. ,

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, the gas station systems are kind of, you know, going. Unfortunately, at least in New York State, they’re going away a little. Yep. You know, kind of, put it in the code, and I think it’s still in a bunch of the Northeast states and some others, but, um, you know, the, the oil lobby, you know, they got way more money than the convenience store lobby.

Bill Jolbert:

Pressure lobby. Yeah.

Drew Slocum):

Yeah.

Bill Jolbert:

Yeah. They got it taken out.  

Drew Slocum:

So last question. How far do the Bills get next year?

Bill Jolbert:

Hmm. Uh, that’s a tough question. <laugh>. I think they’ll do pretty well. I’ve seen them competing again for a title.  I’m just finally glad Tom Brady has put up and hung ’em up. Now we need to get Belichick out of there.  He must have been watching the Bills and Kansas City playoff game and thinking to himself, there’s no way I’m ever going to compete again for a Super Bowl, or I’m ever gonna get to a Super Bowl in the AFC with these two quarterbacks that I gotta get through.  

Drew Slocum:

I know, right. Yeah, it was one of the best games. I mean, I’m not a Bills fan. Many of our team are actually in Buffalo, so that was tough to watch. But, um, anyway, hey, they got a young team. They’re gonna be good for the next few years, so

Bill Jolbert:

I certainly hope so.

Drew Slocum:

Well, Bill, thanks for joining the podcast today. I guess where can we find you? Is there anything about Amerex that you know on the vehicle side for people to find you?

Bill Jolbert::

I’ll throw my email address out there. It’s William.Jolbert@amerexfire.com. Before you go to the website or send in a request, send me your information, and I’ll get back to you.

Drew Slocum:

Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks for the talk today, and looking forward to seeing you. I’ll be at NAFED. I don’t know if you’ll be at NAFED you’re probably more on the vehicle side, but I’ll see the whole Amerex team there, and they’re excited about this episode.

Bill Jolbert:

So we’ll be doing an Amerex vehicle training class the day before NAFED.  So if you’re headed out there and you’re interested in vehicle suppression, let us know.

Drew Slocum:

In Las Vegas.

Bill Jolbert:

In Las Vegas.

Drew Slocum:

All right. That’s actually great timing. So I’ll actually be out there earlier. Maybe I’ll pop over or, you know, ask the team. This is Drew, episode 37 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. Again, wanted to thank my guest, Bill Jolbert from Amerex. Our partnership with Amerex is going really well with Inspect Point, and we love having him on the podcast to talk about some really cool technology with regard to battery fire protection. So, see everybody at NAFED  and many more podcasts coming out in the next few months. Stay tuned. Thanks.