Zorra-Now-Fall 2025-WEB

TOWNSHIP DEPARTMENT INFORMATION TOWNSHIP DEPARTMENT INFORMATION 6 Zorra Now | Fall 2025 Zorra Now | Fall 2025 7 Fire &Emergency Services Department Please contact the Manager of Emergency Services/Fire Chief, Joshua Doyle at 519-425-2301 or at jdoyle@zorra.ca if you have any questions. Space Heaters With the onset of colder weather, space heaters are often used as a source of heat. To keep yourself safe, here are some suggestions and tips for how to use a space heater. If you look at the back or bottom of your space heater, you may see a sticker that says 1500 watts. With our homes and businesses commonly being connected to 120 volts, a space heater will use 12.5 amps when it is working its hardest. Your plug is probably connected to a 15-amp circuit breaker, which is more than 12.5, so that’s okay, right? Devices should not use more than 80% of the rated amperage of the circuit. This is because it is difficult to predict when other devices along the same circuit will activate. These activations can bump the total amperage to or above its rated safe load, causing slow repeated damage within the wiring. Over time this damage can become a fire hazard and the safety measures within the wiring fail. For a 15-amp circuit, 12 amps is the largest safe single load. This would mean a safer space heater for your home or most businesses would be 1400w or less. A 1000w space heater would be safer still. If you already have a 1500w space heater, please do not turn it up to max on a 120v 15-amp outlet. Always buy space heaters that will turn off if they are tipped over. If you look at the back or bottom of your space heater, you may see a sticker that says 1500 watts. With our homes and businesses commonly being connected to 120 volts, a space heater will use 12.5 amps when it is working its hardest. Your plug is probably connected to a 15-amp circuit breaker, which is more than 12.5, so that’s okay, right? Devices should not use more than 80% of the rated amperage of the circuit. This is because it is difficult to predict when other devices along the same circuit will activate. These activations can bump the total amperage to or above its rated safe load, causing slow repeated damage within the wiring. Over time this damage can become a fire hazard nd the safety measures within th wiring fail. For a 15-amp circuit, 12 amps is the l rgest safe single load. This would mean a safer space heater for your home or most businesses would be 1400w or less. A 1000w space heater would be safer still. If you already have a 1500w space heater, please do not turn it up to max on a 120v 15- amp outlet. Always buy space heaters that will turn off if they are tipped over. Always plug a space heater directly into the wall. Always turn space heaters off when they are not being watched. Make sure your space heater is approved by a Standards Council of Canada accredited agency. ULC is one such agency. Use space heaters on a flat surface, making sure they are away from combustible materials and do not create a trip hazard. Inspect the spac h aters for damage often. Please understand how dangerous this common tool can be and treat space heaters with the respect they deserve. This extension cord caused a fire because it was connected to a space heater. Extension cords are not designed to take these heavy loads. Always plug a space heater directly into the wall. Always turn space heaters off when they are not being watched. Make sure your space heater is approved by a Standards Council of Canada accredited agency. ULC is one such agency. Use space heaters on a flat surf c , making sure th y are away from combustible materials and do not create a trip hazard. Inspect the space heaters for damage often. Please understand how dangerous this common tool can be and treat space heaters with the respect they deserve. This extension cord caused a fire because it was connected to a space heater. Extension cords are not designed to take these heavy loads. Lets talk Lithium-ion Batteries. (LIBs) Just the facts: • Zorra Fire Rescue may decide that the safest way to make a burning LIB, such as an EV vehicle safe is to let it burn completely. This is likely going to confuse bystanders when they see the fire department not putting out a fire. There are reasons why not putting out the fire can be the safest option. The dangers of putting out a LIB will be explained in this article. • Lithium-ion Batteries (LIBs) are NOT a good place to look for bargains, “do it yourself”, or trust a repair shop. • Fire risks around LIBs are a significant portion of the reason the Township has stopped accepting used batteries for recycling. Many lithium ion battery recycle depots have had to close down because they had so many fires that they could not find insurance. • WELL DESIGNED, LIBs that are PROPERLY BUILT in CLEAN ENVIRONMENTS have a one in a million failure rate. This is a very impressive figure, but there are so many LIBS present in our day-to-day life that the possibility of witnessing a LIB failure that causes a fire increases daily. • Please do your part by only purchasing batteries and battery-operated items that are ULC approved, and which come from a reputable and established source. o Unapproved devices are out there in the market, but they should not be. ULC or equivalent listing is required to sell an electric device within Ontario. Buying devices from outside of Canada, as well as purchasing refurbished, or grey market batteries and devices may void insurance and may bring legal consequences if the device causes harm. significant number of cycles. Reputable manufacturers make it easy to find out how many recharges or cycles a battery is rated for. Any number of cycles that approach or surpass this recommendation can be considered significant. Lithium reacts violently with both water and oxidizers. When super-heated, electrolytes in LIBs degrade quickly into water, extremely ignitable and toxic products, and oxygen and chemicals that can replace oxygen in the combustion process. This means two things. • First, a compromised lithium-ion battery contains everything it needs to ignite and sustain fire, so cooling it and smothering it are not long-term solutions to extinguishing a LIB. Extinguished batteries are very unstable and continue to change chemically over time, making fire damaged batteries very likely to reignite unpredictably minutes, days, or even weeks after the first fire goes out. • Second, a lithium-ion battery fire is a Hazardous Materials Response, with an extreme ability to cause cancers or death in both bystanders and firefighters. The hazardous byproducts of a LIB can either go into the atmosphere where it will mix until it is undetectable, or the fire department can apply water to it and have many of these products enter Zorra’s water table at significantly higher concentrations. For these reasons the officers and incident commanders of Zorra Fire Rescue have been given a significant amount of freedom when deciding how to deal with a lithium-ion battery fire. • They may extinguish the battery if they can get a hazardous materials company to deal with the remains. • They may let the fire burn out and focus their efforts on keeping people and property away from the heat and smoke. • They may search around any fire for damaged batteries and remove them from the site. Companies are working on less dangerous energy storage options because they know that any company that can build a battery that performs like a lithium- ion battery without the danger will become rich. For example, there are companies who claim that they are very close with sodium-based batteries. It is the hope of Zorra Fire Rescue that this evolution in battery technology happens before applications for large scale battery storage or production land on our doorstep . The lithium-ion battery consists of an anode, a cathode, and a separator in an electrolyte. By passing lithium ions back and forth through the electrolyte during recharging and use, the battery works much better than any other current option. Well-built LIBs have a one in a million failure rate. It is not their design that makes them hazardous, it is how often they are built poorly, when they are changed or damaged, and how common they are. So how do they fail? The first way LIBs fail is due to design errors. When LIBs are not put together properly, they short, superheat, and ignite the electrolyte. Damage can also cause LIBs to fail explosively. Any battery that is exposed to physical damage or significant heat should be considered dangerous and be disposed of through a reputable hazardous waste company. Age and use can slowly change the chemical composition of a lithium-ion battery making a well-designed battery more likely to fail after a