What Fire Extinguishers Do You Need for EV Chargers?
Electric vehicle charging is becoming a routine feature of commercial premises, and one of the questions we are asked most often once the chargers go in concerns fire extinguishers. A business that has installed charging points both outside in its car park and inside its warehouse area wants to know, quite reasonably, which extinguishers it now needs to put on the wall. It is a sensible question, although the honest answer is broader than a simple choice of extinguisher, because the arrival of EV charging changes the fire risk profile of the building in ways that reach well beyond the equipment hanging by the door.
Does installing EV chargers change your building’s fire risk?
Yes, and this is the part that is easy to overlook when the focus is on extinguisher selection. Once charging points are added, whether outside in the car park or inside the warehouse, the building now carries a fire load and a hazard profile that it did not have before, which means the fire strategy for the building and the fire risk assessment that flows from it should be reviewed and, where necessary, amended to reflect the increased risk. This guidance follows the technical position set out by the Fire Protection Association, and it matters because a fire risk assessment is only as useful as it is current. An assessment that was carried out before the chargers were installed cannot have considered a risk that did not yet exist, so a review is the proper starting point rather than an afterthought. If you are unsure how to go about that, our guide on how to commission a fire risk assessment sets out what to expect.
Which fire extinguishers suit the electrical risk from an EV charging point?
The ignition of a charging point is, at heart, an electrical risk, and an electrical risk of this kind can be addressed with a CO₂ extinguisher or a Lith-ex extinguisher. A CO₂ extinguisher works by displacing oxygen and leaves no residue, which makes it well suited to live electrical equipment such as a charging unit. A Lith-ex extinguisher, which uses an aqueous vermiculite dispersion, is designed specifically for small lithium-ion battery fires that are caught early, before the situation has escalated. Both have a genuine role to play where the fire involves the charging equipment or a battery in its very early stages, and either can be appropriate provided staff are trained to recognise when it is safe to act, which is something our fire safety training covers directly.
Can any fire extinguisher put out an EV battery fire?
This is where the difficulty with electric vehicles becomes clear. When thermal runaway occurs within the battery cells, the chemical reaction inside the battery becomes self-sustaining and produces its own oxygen, with the result that there is no type of fire extinguisher that can extinguish the fire. A portable extinguisher might help at the very earliest stage of a charging-point fault, yet once a battery is fully in thermal runaway it will continue to burn regardless of what is directed at it from a handheld unit. We have written about this hazard in more detail in our piece on lithium-ion battery fire risk, and the same physics that makes these batteries so difficult to deal with in residential blocks applies equally in a commercial warehouse setting.
Why sprinkler protection matters more than extinguisher choice
Because no extinguisher can stop a battery in thermal runaway, the risk has to be addressed through sprinkler protection, which works by cooling and suppressing the fire and holding it in check until such time as the fire and rescue service can attend. A sprinkler system does more than buy time, however, since the same cooling effect helps to maintain the temperature of the surrounding structural environment, which supports structural stability and reduces the likelihood of a premature collapse, a serious concern in a warehouse where racking, stored goods and the building frame itself are all exposed to intense heat. For a building that already faces a range of ignition sources, the addition of EV charging is one more reason to think carefully about active suppression, a theme we explore alongside other hazards in our overview of what causes warehouse fires.
Does it matter whether the chargers are in the car park or the warehouse?
The underlying behaviour of a lithium-ion battery is the same wherever it is charged, although the location does shape the controls you will want to consider and the findings your assessment is likely to reach. A charging point inside the warehouse sits within the building envelope, often close to stored goods and beneath the structure you most need to protect, so the case for internal sprinkler coverage and careful separation from combustible storage is a strong one. A charging point outside in the car park brings its own considerations, including the proximity of charging bays to the building, the potential for a vehicle fire to spread to the structure, and the access that crews will need if they are called. Because the two situations raise different questions, the most reliable way to arrive at the right answer for each is a properly conducted warehouse fire risk assessment that looks at the premises as a whole. This is also a good example of the way small, separate weaknesses can combine into something far more serious, a principle we discuss in our article on the Swiss cheese theory of fire safety.
Why you need to tell your insurer
One step that businesses frequently miss is notifying their buildings insurer. The risk the insurer is covering, in terms of the building fabric, has changed once charging points are introduced, and many policies contain conditions that require the insured to disclose material changes of exactly this kind. Telling your insurer is partly a matter of good practice and partly a matter of protecting your own position, since a claim following an EV-related fire could become very difficult if the insurer was never made aware that the chargers had been installed. It is worth confirming your policy wording with your broker so that your current arrangements remain valid.
Where to start: your fire risk assessment and fire strategy
Choosing the right extinguishers is a worthwhile exercise, and CO₂ or Lith-ex units have a clear place alongside your EV charging equipment, yet they sit at the end of a longer process rather than the start of it. The first action, once chargers have gone in, is to revisit the fire strategy for the building and to review and amend the fire risk assessment so that every new risk has been properly considered, after which the question of detection, suppression, extinguishers, signage, staff training and your wider fire safety policy can all be answered in a way that reflects the building as it now stands. If you have recently installed EV charging, or are planning to, and you would like us to review your fire risk assessment in light of it, please get in touch.
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Book a fire risk assessment Contact usThis article is provided for general guidance and does not constitute fire engineering or legal advice. Decisions about extinguisher provision, sprinkler protection and other fire safety measures should be based on a competent fire risk assessment of the specific premises, and the technical position described here draws on guidance published by the Fire Protection Association. Fletcher Risk Management is based in Chester and provides fire risk assessments, fire door inspections and fire safety training across the North West, North Wales and the West Midlands. © Fletcher Risk Management Ltd, July 2026.