Fire and Rescue NSW (operational attendance)
EV fires
ICE vehicle fires
Arson inflates totals for both propulsion types. The non-arson line under each headline count is the same FRNSW dataset with arson attendances split out in the FRNSW position paper.
Australia-wide (verified EV battery fires)
- Verified EV battery fires (since 2021)
- EVs on Australian roads (approx.)
- Implied EV rate
- Implied ICE rate (national teaching figure)
- ICE / EV (ratio)
Caveats
- EV battery fires can be slow and water-hungry on scene. Crews may need different tactics than for a typical petrol engine bay. A low national count still leaves real work for firefighting when one runs. VESR on EV fire safety and Austroads’ EV incident response material spell that out.
- Fleet age skews raw comparisons. Australia’s EV stock skews newer than the average ICE car. Age-adjusted work (for example Swedish registry studies) still finds higher ICE fire rates, but the gap is smaller than naïve headline ratios suggest.
- Cause fields describe the file; they do not settle the physics question. Plenty of Australian rows read as another fire reaching the car first. That is a useful pattern in the data. It is not proof that a pack can never be the first fuel.
Fires per 100,000 vehicles per year
The Australia EV point is verified battery fires divided by the fleet figure in fires.json, annualised. The three US bars use AutoinsuranceEZ sales-based rates from the same file. Sales cohorts are not the same thing as cars registered in Australia, so use those three as a rough contrast, not a merged statistic with the AU point.
Lithium-ion battery fires attended by FRNSW (2024–25)
Verified Australian EV battery fires: attributed causes
Sources
- FRNSW: Fire Safety Position Paper (EVs and EV charging in the built environment) (24 vs 6,139 vehicle fires, NSW, cross-referenced with TfNSW registrations).
- EV FireSafe: verified EV battery fire database (DoD-funded program).
- energy.gov.au: Electric vehicle facts (national fleet and verified fire totals, updated over time).
- VESR: EV fire safety (Australian government).
- Electric Vehicle Council (peak body summary).
- NRMA Open Road (popular press, cross-check dates against primary sources).
- FRNSW annual reporting / open data: fire.nsw.gov.au.