From pv magazine Germany
On Monday afternoon, the Norden fire department in East Frisia received an emergency call. According to the report, the roof of a warehouse in the town was on fire, and several of its PV system's solar modules were also burning in the middle section of the approximately 100-meter-long hall. “Although the fire was manageable in size, the extinguishing work was complex and time-consuming,” explained the Norden volunteer fire department on its website.
The energy supplier EWE disconnected the PV system from the grid, but the modules continued to produce electricity and kept reigniting the fire. “In addition, there were short circuits in the system, which caused further sources of fire and also posed a risk to the emergency services,” the report continued. In addition, when the emergency services investigated the hall, they found that the fire had also spread to the wooden roof structure.
The spread of the fire under the glass solar modules could be easily observed using a drone with a thermal imaging camera. The fire brigade then used two water cannons, among other things, to stop the fire from spreading further. The extinguishing measures were also carried out in a targeted manner with the help of the drone and two turntable ladders.
The fire brigade then also got support from a local electrician. He recommended uninstalling the damaged parts of the PV system to prevent another fire. Together with two firefighters, they began to dismantle the solar modules on the roof. The solar modules were then transported to the ground using a crane and pallet gripper from a building materials dealer, the fire brigade stated in its report. The operation on site lasted around seven hours. Around 100 emergency service personnel were on site. Experts and police are now trying to determine the cause of the fire and quantify the damage caused.
Fire in Erftstadt
There was also a fire in Erftstadt Scheuren near Cologne on Monday. Much less information is available on this so far.
“The garage burned down completely in the area of a photovoltaic system,” said the Erftstadt fire department on its Facebook page. Around 50 emergency services were on site and were able to prevent the fire from spreading to the main building. No one was injured. A request from pv magazine for further details and whether there was a battery storage system on site initially remained unanswered.
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