Adam Małyszko, President of FORS Association, who is at the same time the Managing Director and the majority shareholder of AMBIT, in which an atypical fire of pressed car bodies occurred on January 21, 2020, informs about the initial findings of the appointed committee to identify the cause of the fire.

After reviewing the monitoring of the storage location of pressed vehicles (bodywork for shredding), the committee determined that the most likely source of energy that caused the fire could have been a mobile phone, powerbank, laptop or other non-standard lithium-ion battery-powered device left in the vehicle. After the vehicle was pressed, the battery could be mechanically damaged and cause a fire even a few hours after the car body was pressed. At the same time, Ambit informed that there wouldn’t be such a big fire if the transport companies had an entry in the BDO register. The transport companies which were placing cars after January 1st, 2020 to collect this waste were not entered in the BDO register, so more pressed car bodies were collected than usual. Luckily, the pressed bodywork warehouse was located at a safe distance from buildings and other stored end-of-life vehicles and combustible waste that could have been caught in fire. In addition, as reported by Ambit, the third party involvement in the fire cannot be excluded at this stage.

Due to the abovementioned fire, the President of FORS Association warns the entities operating dismantling stations that such situations may also occur in other companies that pack or press car bodies to be shredded. During the FORS conference, participants from England and the US warned that such cases took place in their countries.

Manners of method of protection against such incidents will be discussed at the next Board meeting of FORS. We will publish our recommendations on the FORS website.

If you have any suggestions, based on your own experience, please send them to: sekretariat@fors.pl .

Please find attached a video showing the effect of damage to mobile phone batteries:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1jingACvBs

Examples of other events:

https://www.miastopociech.pl/aktualnosci/zuzytebaterieprzyczynapozaruprzedszkolaradnyapelujedoprezydenta https://www.polsatnews.pl/wiadomosc/20180330/laptoppozostawionywbiurzeeksplodowaliwywolalpozarsplonelocalepomieszczenie/