This summer, the NFPA completed the pilot phase of a new training program created to instruct firefighters on how to properly deal with electric vehicles — or electric/gas-combustion hybrids — that are on fire or have been involved in a crash.

The response to the program generally was positive and the pilot didn’t reveal any “gotcha” lessons, according to Jason Emery, an NFPA consultant who is the lead trainer within the association’s electric-vehicle training program. However, some graphics and language will undergo minor revisions to make them clearer.

“When more than one group asked the same question about the same section, it made us realize that the language needed to be tweaked a little bit to ensure that the point was being made,” Emery said.

The pilot was intended to determine whether the program’s instructional materials were appropriate and effective. “We wanted the most efficient delivery system possible,” Emery said.

There are two aspects of the training program. One is an interactive online experience that is expected to be ready by October. It requires students to correctly answer a series of questions before they’re allowed to move on to the next module. There also is an instructor-led, PowerPoint-based presentation. Both incorporate video to help instructors hammer home key points.

Regarding the latter, the NFPA currently is working with the state fire academies — or the organization in each state that oversees fire service training — to schedule classes.

Ease of accessibility is an important attribute of the online version, especially given the budget constraints that many departments are experiencing, which might prevent some firefighters from traveling to attend classes held at the fire academies. “All they have to do is jump onto a computer and log in,” Emery said.

The goal is to reach as many firefighters as quickly as possible.

“The current administration wants to have 1 million electric cars on the road by 2015,” Emery said. “That doesn’t count all of the hybrid vehicles that already are on the road.”

So, there’s considerable need for such training, which the fire service seems to understand, Emery said.

“The general response that we got was, ‘We really need this training,’” he said. “The fire service as a whole has come to the realization that there are quite a few of these vehicles on the road.”

An important goal of the training program is to clear up misconceptions about how these vehicles operate. “We’ve always been taught that high-voltage electricity and water don’t mix,” Emery said.

Specifically, firefighters always have been taught that they can’t pour water on an electrical system that’s on fire when the system is attached to a structure, because the electricity will travel back to the firefighter via the water stream. Emery explained that structures in the U.S. are wired in such a manner that everything is grounded. So, if a firefighter standing on the ground interacts with an electrical circuit in a building, a potential path for the electricity to flow is created, i.e., the water stream.

“The biggest risk associated with electrocution is placing yourself in the path of the electricity,” Emery said.

However, because electric and hybrid cars aren’t grounded, there is no pathway back to the firefighter; thus, using water on them isn’t an issue. “In fact, most vehicle manufacturers recommend copious amounts of water,” Emery said.

Emery added that most electric cars have numerous safety systems that are designed to shut down the high-voltage system that powers the vehicle in the event of a catastrophic event such as a crash. But because they are electromechanical devices, he advised that firefighters always err on the side of caution when dealing with them.

“There’s never 100% certainty that everything is going to operate like it’s supposed to,” he said. “So, we always instruct that firefighters should operate as if the system hasn’t shut down, which means you don’t cut the orange wires or pull batteries out of the car, and you don’t interact with the high-voltage system at all.”

Firefighters also need to be aware that, unlike a gas-combustion vehicle, electric vehicles — as well as hybrids when operating in electric mode — are silent. Consequently, first responders should not approach an electric or hybrid vehicle directly from the front or rear — essentially the path of travel — just in case the vehicle still is running.

“We have to get emergency responders to understand that, just because they don’t hear the vehicle running, it doesn’t mean that it’s shut down — that’s a key point,” Emery said.

Also because so many of these vehicles are built on existing chassis, it’s often not easy to identify them as electric vehicles right off the bat.

“These are not your futuristic ‘George Jetson’ cars,” Emery said. “They look like regular Toyota Camrys and Ford Escapes and other cars that we see every day. So, taking the approach that, until proven otherwise, it is an electric or alternative-fuel vehicle is a sound practice.”

When encountering an electric-powered vehicle, Emery further advises that firefighters use the best practices they have been taught regarding conventional vehicles, such as chocking the wheels in order to prevent the vehicle from rolling, shutting off the ignition, ensuring that the vehicle is in park and setting the parking brake.

Perhaps the most important best practice is disconnecting the 12-volt battery. This is done with a conventional vehicle in order to disconnect its restraint systems, but doing so offers an added benefit when dealing with an electric-powered vehicle, Emery said.

“The system is designed so that, when you remove the 12-volt power, a relay that is built into the high-voltage battery opens up and shuts down the high-voltage current,” he said.

However, because no system works perfectly every time, “this is not a license to start cutting orange wires,” Emery said.