Firefighters Against Solar Panels

These questions pose a problem for modern firefighters and are some of the reasons the madison fire department applied for grants to install solar photovoltaic panels at their station.

Firefighters against solar panels.

Why firefighters are scared of solar rooftops solar panels are partly to blame for a warehouse in new jersey burning down last week the local fire chief says. Much inaccurate information about pv and firefighter safety has been published on the internet recently even to the point of recommendations to let it burn if solar panels are spotted on a roof. That s good news for a warming planet. Just like the 44 000 electrical fires that happen every year a solar panel fire is the result of a malfunction.

1 2 courtesy of u s. A properly designed and installed solar panel system with correctly operating equipment presents no fire hazard to your home. Marc van de velde a loss prevention expert at xl catlin discusses the issues. Since solar panels are everywhere from home roofs to roadside signs to supermarkets firefighter training is intended to deal with all the challenges that may arrive when fighting fire with solar products involved.

Regulations must be unified and adhered to so that renewable energy companies in all fifty states are in compliance with research based federal safety recommendations. Another big concern that bothers most people is how well firefighters are capable of controlling a house fire with solar panels. The first way is by turning off your inverter by a simple flip of the switch located on the front panel see picture below. When fire departments arrive to a house fire where solar panels are interconnected to the power grid they have two options to kill the power on your solar panels and both ways are very quick.

The rising popularity of solar energy also requires firefighters to develop better training for emergency scenarios involving solar panels. In actual roof fires with roof mounted solar panels fire damage has involved areas of between 1 000 and 183 000 ft 2 93 and 17 000 m 2. In the most extreme case the fire spread to the inside and destroyed the entire building see fig. How do solar panels catch on fire.

Pv roof fire at a refrigerated warehouse in nj in 2013. However solar panels also present some new and challenging risks especially to firefighters.