Is Your Site Ready for a Lithium Battery Fire Now?
Fire and Rescue NSW responded to 332 lithium-ion battery fires in 2025. That is up from 323 in 2024, and 272 in 2023. The trajectory is not subtle, and it shows no sign of flattening. In April 2026, the NSW Government passed nation-leading battery legislation, cementing NSW as the first Australian state to mandate battery regulation. Western Australia recorded a lithium-ion battery fire almost every second day across 2024, the worst year on record for that state. Across South Australia, MFS callouts to lithium battery fires increased nearly ten-fold over five years.
Every construction site, warehouse, transport depot, and manufacturing facility in Australia now carries this risk. If your site runs cordless power tools, e-bikes, two-way radio batteries, drone equipment, or any battery-powered plant, the hazard is already present. The question is whether your fire safety programme accounts for it.
Most do not. The good news is that the gap is straightforward to close.
Why Lithium Fires Catch Sites Off Guard
Walk through most Australian construction sites or industrial facilities and you will find ABE dry powder extinguishers, hose reels, and fire blankets. All compliant. All appropriate for the fire risks those environments were designed around. Overloaded power boards, flammable material storage, accumulated combustibles: these are the hazards that workplace fire risk guides have always covered well. Lithium battery thermal runaway is a newer and distinct category that sits outside that established framework entirely.
When a lithium-ion cell fails, it enters a process called thermal runaway: a self-sustaining chemical chain reaction that generates extreme heat, toxic gases, and flames. Surface temperatures exceed 1,000°C. The gases released include hydrogen fluoride and carbon monoxide. Standard ABE dry powder extinguishers cannot stop the underlying reaction. Water suppresses temperature but does not extinguish the chemistry driving the event.
The property that makes these fires genuinely dangerous in a workplace context is re-ignition. A cell that appears extinguished can reignite hours, or in some cases days, later as adjacent cells in the pack continue to fail. Your team clears the area. Everyone assumes it is over. It is not necessarily over.
Fire and Rescue NSW data confirms that people are four times more likely to suffer injury in a lithium-ion battery fire than in other fire types. The Coroners Court of NSW opened a formal inquest into lithium-ion battery deaths and serious fires in November 2024, citing approximately five fires per week in NSW at that time. The NSW Government now formally classifies lithium-ion batteries as the fastest-growing fire hazard in the state.
What Triggers Thermal Runaway
Understanding the triggers matters because most of them are controllable. SafeWork NSW identifies four primary causes of lithium-ion battery failure on site:
- Overcharging: Charging beyond the battery's rated capacity stresses the internal cell structure and initiates thermal runaway. This is the most common cause on construction and industrial sites, where workers leave batteries on charge unattended or use incompatible chargers.
- Physical damage: Puncturing, crushing, or dropping a battery can compromise internal cell integrity and trigger a short circuit. Construction environments are hard on equipment.
- Manufacturing defects: A small number of failures trace back to the product itself, regardless of how carefully it was handled.
- Exposure to heat: Storing batteries near heat sources, in direct sunlight, or in poorly ventilated enclosures raises ambient cell temperature and increases failure risk.
The difficult reality for site managers is that none of these triggers necessarily produce a visible warning before the event begins. A swollen or overheating battery is an early signal, but by the time a worker notices it, the process may already be underway.
Your Duty as a PCBU
Under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011, PCBUs carry an obligation to identify hazards and implement suitable controls for every risk their workers face. SafeWork NSW is explicit: if your site uses battery-powered plant and equipment, you must assess the risk and implement control measures covering safe use, storage, and handling of lithium-ion batteries.
Since 22 August 2025, the NSW WHS Regulation 2025 added a specific obligation. Workplaces storing 25,000kg or more of lithium-ion batteries must prepare an emergency plan addressing lithium battery fire risk management and submit that plan to Fire and Rescue NSW. That threshold is primarily relevant to large-scale battery storage operations and some transport depots, but the broader duty of care applies to every site regardless of battery volume.
In April 2026, the NSW Government announced nation-leading battery legislation with penalties of up to $880,000 for battery suppliers who fail to comply. The 332 incidents recorded by Fire and Rescue NSW in 2025 drove that legislative response. Regulatory attention will only increase as the incident rate continues to climb.
The practical implication for construction and industrial operators is clear: "we had an extinguisher on the wall" is not a sufficient answer to a WHS investigation following a lithium battery incident. SafeWork NSW requires documented risk assessment, safe work procedures, worker training, and an appropriate emergency response capability. If your fire safety documentation and equipment records are not already in order, the gaps a fire safety audit typically surfaces are worth addressing alongside your lithium battery programme, not after it.
Prevention First, Response Second
Lithium-ion battery risk management on a construction or industrial site operates on two distinct levels: preventing the event and responding to it when prevention is not enough. Both require the right equipment.
Controlling the Risk at the Source: Safe Charging and Storage
The single most controllable variable in lithium battery fire risk is where and how batteries charge. Uncontrolled charging in open areas, near flammable materials, or on improvised surfaces gives a thermal runaway event the best possible conditions to spread. Charging inside a purpose-built enclosure removes that spread pathway entirely.
Checkpoint Group's Lithium-ion Battery Charging and Storage Cabinet is built specifically for this function. The double-wall steel construction, integrated ventilation system, and 3-point lockable door create a contained, ventilated environment for charging and storage. Perforated shelving promotes airflow around batteries during charge cycles. The internal 10-amp 240V power circuit eliminates the need to run leads outside the cabinet.
It suits the specific battery types your site already carries: power tool packs, e-bike batteries, drone batteries, two-way radio batteries, and other portable lithium-ion packs. Construction sites, workshops, mining operations, transport depots, and warehouses all carry exactly this inventory. Keeping it inside a cabinet engineered for the purpose is the most straightforward control measure available.
Responding When the Chemistry Goes Wrong
Control measures reduce the probability of an incident. They do not reduce it to zero. A battery with a manufacturing defect can fail regardless of how well your team stored it. A pack that took physical damage three months ago on another site may begin failing today. When thermal runaway starts, your team has roughly 60 seconds to do something useful before the situation moves beyond first-response capability.
Standard ABE extinguishers will not work. Your team needs a response kit built for this specific hazard, positioned where they can access it immediately, without consulting a manual.
The Checkpoint Group Lithium Fire First Responder Station puts that capability on site. The station includes a 9-litre F-500 extinguisher rated for lithium-ion fires, a lithium-ion fire blanket, a bleed kit, clear signage, and a weatherproof cabinet on a wheeled trolley for fast repositioning. The F-500 agent encapsulates fuel molecules, removes heat, and reduces the risk of re-ignition rather than simply smothering surface flames. Everything your first responder needs is in one location, clearly labelled, and ready to deploy.
What a Site-Ready Battery Safety Programme Covers
A practical battery fire safety programme for a construction or industrial site covers the following:
- All lithium-ion batteries stored and charged inside a purpose-built charging cabinet, away from flammable materials
- Charging conducted with compatible, manufacturer-approved chargers only
- No batteries left on charge unattended overnight
- Workers trained to recognise early warning signs: swelling, unusual heat, or visible deformation in a battery casing
- A lithium fire first responder station positioned at or near the primary charging location
- A documented emergency plan covering thermal runaway response procedures
- Incident notification procedures confirmed, because under the NSW WHS Act a dangerous incident involving a lithium-ion battery must be reported to SafeWork NSW on 13 10 50 immediately
None of this is complicated. What it requires is treating the lithium battery risk as a distinct category that sits alongside your existing fire safety programme, not buried inside it.
When the Numbers Double, the Risk Is Real
In 2022, Fire and Rescue NSW attended 165 lithium-ion battery fire incidents across the state. In 2025, that figure reached 332. The number doubled in three years in a state already running the busiest fire service in Australia. Each year in that run, 2023 at 272, 2024 at 323, 2025 at 332, brought a new record.
The Coroners Court of NSW has an open inquest. The NSW Government has passed mandatory battery legislation with penalties of up to $880,000 for non-compliant battery suppliers. SafeWork NSW carries dedicated PCBU guidance on its hazards register and updated the WHS Regulation in August 2025 to add specific notification obligations for large-scale battery storage.
The regulatory machinery is moving in one direction. Sites that address this now spend a fraction of what an incident, a SafeWork investigation, or a protracted insurance dispute costs. More importantly, they give their workers the protection the WHS Act already requires them to provide.
If your current site safety programme does not specifically address lithium-ion battery charging, storage, and first response, contact the Checkpoint Group team about a safety review for your site. We work with construction managers, WHS officers, and industrial operators across Australia to identify exactly where the gaps are and put the right equipment in place.
