01 — Storage & Transport
Outer Carry Bag
Weather-sealed, branded storage and transport bag. Keeps the blanket protected, identifiable, and ready for rapid deployment from any fixed or mobile response point.
Golden Fleece delivers the only end-to-end response programme for lithium-ion thermal events: certified containment, post-incident HAZMAT recovery, full documentation — and a replacement blanket the moment you've used yours.
The lithium-ion traction battery problem is not confined to electric cars. Wherever a traction battery charges — overnight, indoors, alongside stock, alongside personnel — the same chemistry, the same thermal runaway profile, and the same HAZMAT consequences apply.
Most operations have thought about the EVs in their staff car park. Far fewer have thought about the lithium-ion forklift fleet sitting on a charger overnight inside the warehouse — or the AGVs, the ride-on scrubbers, the e-bikes for last-mile delivery, the ground-support equipment, the scissor lifts.
Industrial charging areas are typically sanitised. They are kept clear, segregated, and at distance from production. That is sound practice — and it does not stop a single thermal runaway event from turning the surrounding facility into a HAZMAT cleaning problem.
The charging zone contains the start of the incident. It does not contain the consequences.
Lithium-ion thermal runaway is a chemical incident before it is a thermal one. The fire is the visible symptom; the hazardous-materials problem is what lingers — across the site, the workforce, and the infrastructure — long after suppression appears complete.
Burning electrolyte releases hydrofluoric acid and a cocktail of toxic gases — corrosive to skin, lungs, concrete, and steel. Smoke and runoff contaminate well beyond the incident footprint, and the contamination persists long after the fire is out.
Reignition risk persists for up to 72 hours after apparent extinction. Containment, not suppression, is the operating model — and it must continue long after the fire team stands down.
Cell-level temperatures exceed the ignition point of most adjacent materials. Conventional vehicle blankets and dry powder offer no meaningful containment at these temperatures.
An EV in thermal runaway emits a measured cocktail of flammable, asphyxiant, and acutely toxic compounds. Treating the incident as a fire alone misreads it. The peer-reviewed evidence is unambiguous on what is being released, in what volumes, and with what consequences.
| Compound | Class | Hazard |
|---|---|---|
| Carbon monoxide CO | Major | Asphyxiant; abundant by volume |
| Carbon dioxide CO₂ | Major | Suffocation hazard at scale |
| Hydrogen H₂ | Major | Flammable; deferred-ignition explosion risk |
| Hydrocarbons CH₄, C₂H₆… | Major | Flammable; contribute to LFL breach |
| Hydrogen fluoride HF | Toxic | Severe respiratory, skin, infrastructure damage |
| Phosphoryl fluoride POF₃ | Toxic | Highly toxic; produced alongside HF |
| Benzene, toluene, styrene, formaldehyde | Toxic | Carcinogenic and irritant; observed in test fires |
A 70 kWh EV pack in full thermal runaway can release on the order of 1.4 to 14 kilograms of hydrogen fluoride alone.
Researchers measured HF generation between 20 and 200 milligrams per watt-hour of nominal battery capacity across seven commercial cell types. At pack scale, that translates to industrial quantities of an acutely toxic acid gas — sufficient to contaminate enclosed volumes far larger than the incident footprint, persist in runoff and on surfaces, and degrade concrete, steel, and respiratory tissue alike.
NMC cells (the dominant chemistry in battery-electric vehicles) produce larger total off-gas volumes and higher CO emissions, particularly at high state of charge. LFP cells produce less off-gas overall but are more toxic in absolute terms, with proportionally greater HF release and a lower flammability limit. Neither is safe; both demand the same containment discipline.
State of charge compounds the hazard. A fully-charged pack produces dramatically more gas than a depleted one — which is why fleet charging stations, depots, and overnight storage are the highest-exposure environments in any operation.
Golden Fleece is not, primarily, a product company. The programme came first — the standards, the protocols, the lifecycle. The Golden Fleece Containment Blanket exists because nothing on the market could meet the response we already knew we owed.
Designed by firefighters, for the incident firefighters actually face. As a professional organisation working to DIN SPEC 91489, we needed technology to match our standards. The available products didn't. So we built our own.
The Golden Fleece Containment Blanket is certified to DIN SPEC 91489 and independently audited by SGS. It is the first thing a dealer sees, but it is the last problem the system had to solve — only after the standards, the protocols, and the response lifecycle were defined.
It is one product in a programme. The programme is the offer.
500 mm double skirt. Reinforced lifting loops. Engineered, not assembled.
A shrapnel-limitation skirt runs the full perimeter — designed to contain ejected cell fragments during venting. Red corner loops are sized for gloved hand or hook deployment, with reinforced stitching specified to the standard. Every metric on this blanket is documented and traceable.
The blanket ships as part of a complete response kit. Each component is engineered to a defined stage of the response lifecycle — from rapid deployment through HAZMAT recovery.
Weather-sealed, branded storage and transport bag. Keeps the blanket protected, identifiable, and ready for rapid deployment from any fixed or mobile response point.
Telescopic deployment poles with hooked ends, used to spread the blanket onto an incident from outside the hazard envelope — without responders entering the thermal-runaway zone.
Biohazard-marked containment bag for the contaminated blanket post-incident. Handled to a documented HAZMAT chain-of-custody, preventing secondary contamination of personnel, infrastructure, or waste streams.
High-visibility, fire-resistant containment bags for safe transport and storage of damaged or end-of-life lithium-ion batteries — separating the cell-level hazard from the rest of the operation, before or after an incident.
Silicone-coated, fire-resistant cover engineered for palletised lithium-ion goods in storage, charging areas, and transit. Containment at the source — before a damaged cell ever becomes an incident.
Most providers stop at deployment. Golden Fleece treats the EV incident as a closed loop — from preparedness through documentation, with every stage certified and audit-ready.
Site assessment, written protocols, instructor-led training. Competency frameworks aligned to DIN SPEC 91489.
More infoEngagement begins with an on-site exposure assessment — where EVs are parked, charged, serviced, and stored, and how the existing emergency response is built around them.
From that baseline we deliver written response protocols, role-specific competency training, and instructor-led drills. All training is documented and traceable to a named individual; all protocols are version-controlled and aligned to DIN SPEC 91489.
Rapid blanket deployment to isolate the incident, shield infrastructure, and suppress smoke spread.
More infoThe Golden Fleece Containment Blanket is deployed over the incident vehicle within minutes, isolating the thermal event from surrounding infrastructure and substantially limiting smoke and toxic-gas spread.
Containment, not suppression, is the operating model — the blanket is engineered to hold the incident through the full reignition window, not to put it out.
Structured decision-making at each escalation point. Clear authority, clear records.
More infoEvery escalation point has a defined decision-maker, a defined criterion, and a defined record. There is no ambiguity about who calls evacuation, who calls fire-service handover, who calls cordon extension.
This is the difference between a response that survives a coronial inquiry and one that does not.
Controlled removal of contaminated materials. Differentiated handling prevents secondary contamination.
More infoThe fire is the visible event; the contamination is the lasting one. HF-laden runoff, particulate fallout, and the contaminated blanket itself are all hazardous waste — and most operations have no protocol for handling any of them.
Golden Fleece provides the procedure, the documentation chain, and the differentiated handling that prevents the recovery from becoming a second incident.
Audit-grade records supporting regulatory compliance, insurer scrutiny, and post-incident review.
More infoEvery stage above produces a record — site assessment, training register, deployment log, decision audit, recovery manifest. Together they form a defensible evidence chain.
It is what stands up under regulator review, insurance investigation, and — if it ever came to it — coronial scrutiny.
A single commitment that makes EV containment a no-regret decision — for the operation, for the buyer, and for the channel that places it.
You buy the blanket once.
We replace it after every incident.
EV containment products are typically a one-shot defence — used once, then written off. That creates a budget objection and a replenishment headache nobody wants to own.
Full-Cycle Cover removes both. Deploy the blanket in anger and a certified replacement is on its way. The programme stays operational. The buyer stays covered. The channel stays clean.
Every element of the programme rests on documented standards and independent certification. That is what stands up to an audit, an insurer, or a coroner.
The reference specification for EV fire containment systems. Defines minimum requirements for thermal performance, deployment, and durability.
Third-party certification by SGS provides documented evidence of compliance — essential for insurer confidence and post-incident defensibility.
Approved instructor delivery ensures competency frameworks are standardised across shifts and sites, and remain auditable over time.
Golden Fleece is a small, deliberate organisation. Every part of the response — the standards, the technology, the training, the documentation — sits with named people who own it.
Les Fletcher is the founder of Golden Fleece Fire Safety and the architect of its end-to-end EV thermal-runaway response programme. A career firefighter and credentialled safety professional, he leads every element of the offer — from the standards work that anchors DIN SPEC 91489 alignment, to the design of the Golden Fleece Containment Blanket, to the instructor-led training delivered to client teams.
Les founded Golden Fleece on a single observation: as EVs entered every kind of operation — fleets, plants, workshops, depots — the response capability lagged years behind the exposure. Existing products were re-labelled vehicle-fire equipment, and existing protocols treated thermal runaway as if it were petrol combustion. Neither was good enough. So he built a programme that wasn't.
Day to day, Les leads client engagements personally. Every site assessment, every training delivery, and every post-incident review is led or co-led by him. The credentials in the panel above are his — they are the basis on which the rest of the organisation operates.
More team members will be introduced here as Golden Fleece expands. Every named role will carry its own credentials and accountability.
For readers who want the complete picture — the legal foundations, the structural precedents, the documented evidence behind the programme — two short reference pieces.
Three procurement objections. Three legal answers. How the Go / No-Go protocol meets the obligations imposed by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974, and Section 44 of the Employment Rights Act 1996.
Read the frameworkLiverpool Echo Arena, 2017. London Luton Airport, 2023. Two named UK car-park fires, six years apart, both started by a single vehicle, both demolished. The pattern, the economic frame, and the response specifiable today.
Read the caseTell us about your operation, your exposure, and what's in place today. We'll come back with a scoped recommendation — not a sales pitch.