Lithium-Ion Battery Fires Show Why the First Minutes of a Hazmat Emergency Decide the Outcome, Experts Say

Former PHMSA official and veteran battery firefighter to examine communication failures in free Nov. 10 LinkedIn Live session

WAXAHACHIE, TX, UNITED STATES, November 6, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — When a hazardous materials emergency goes wrong, the critical failures often happen before responders arrive, according to Ryan Paquet, a former director of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) Approvals and Permits Division.

“After an incident, everyone asks what the responders did. The better question is what the people upstream did to make sure command had the right information before anyone showed up,” said Paquet, now president of HazMat Safety Consulting, an Americase International company.

Paquet and Dalan Zartman, a career firefighter and CEO of Energy Security Agency, a battery-safety testing, emergency response and training firm, will examine those failures in “When It All Goes Wrong: Incident Command Lessons from the Field,” a free LinkedIn Live session on Tuesday, Nov. 10, from 11 a.m. to noon CST.

Lithium-ion batteries have made those early decisions harder. After a big rig carrying large lithium-ion batteries overturned near the Port of Los Angeles in September 2024 and an explosion blew open its cargo container, responders chose not to use water to avoid washing hazardous materials into Los Angeles waterways, and the batteries burned for days. In September 2026, a battery storage fire in La Verne, California, prompted evacuation orders for more than 500 homes.

“Lithium-ion batteries can always reignite hours or days after a fire appears to be out due to stranded energy still in the batteries,” Zartman said. “If the incident commander doesn’t know what hazards they are dealing with and how to address them, then everything is a potentially life altering gamble.”

The session will cover:

– What happens in the first 10 minutes of a hazmat emergency and where things can go wrong.
– Why critical information doesn’t always reach incident commanders.
– How responders make resource deployment decisions with limited information.
– The challenges of coordinating public and private responders under the Incident Command System (ICS).
– How lithium-ion battery hazards shape suppression, evacuation and runoff decisions.

The webinar is aimed at emergency response directors, safety officers, logistics managers, corporate crisis teams and battery storage operators. Attendees will receive a pre-incident readiness checklist, and all registrants will receive a recording.

Session Details

Session: When It All Goes Wrong: Incident Command Lessons from the Field
Presenters: Ryan Paquet and Dalan Zartman
Date: Tuesday, November 10, 2026
Time: 11 a.m. – noon CST (noon – 1 p.m. EST)
Location: LinkedIn Live
Cost: Free; recording provided to all registrants

To learn more or register for the free webinar, visit Americase International’s webinar registration page: https://www.americaseinternational.com/events/

Media: Paquet and Zartman are available for interviews before and after the session. Journalists may attend the live session at no cost. Contact Marina Malamis (below) to arrange an interview.

About HazMat Safety Consulting

HazMat Safety Consulting, an Americase International company based in Waxahachie, Texas, provides dangerous goods regulatory, compliance and safety consulting across the product and logistics lifecycle. Its consultants include former regulatory leaders and technical experts with experience at the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and in international dangerous goods rulemaking, helping organizations navigate U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), International Air Transport Association (IATA), International Maritime Dangerous Goods (IMDG) Code and other dangerous goods requirements.

HazMat Safety Consulting serves organizations across aerospace, defense, energy, healthcare, technology and industrial markets. Services span regulatory strategy and gap analysis; classification, packaging, marking, labeling and documentation; training and certification; emergency response planning; and safety management system development. To learn more, visit www.hazmatsafety.com.

Marina Malamis
HazMat Safety Consulting
marinam@hazmatsafety.com
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