To mark Fire Prevention Week, US fire protection provider Pye-Barker Fire & Safety has issued five lithium-ion battery safety steps for the managers of commercial facilities. The guidance covers the batteries that power servers, forklifts, tools and e-bikes, and it recommends early-warning detection in battery rooms, because failing cells vent flammable gas before smoke appears.
Snapshot
Guidance: Five steps
Audience: Facility managers
Occasion: Fire Prevention Week
Dates: 4-10 October
Campaign year: Second
Key risk: Flammable gas
Locations: 250+
Team members: 9,000+
Pye-Barker Fire & Safety, a US-based fire protection and security services company, has released lithium-ion battery safety guidance for the managers of commercial buildings. It timed the release, which is dated 5 October 2026, to coincide with Fire Prevention Week, which runs from 4 to 10 October this year.
This is the second year in a row that the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has built its Fire Prevention Week campaign around lithium-ion batteries, and the theme is "Charge into Fire Safety: Safe Charging Is a Superpower." The NFPA campaign is about everyday charging habits. Pye-Barker has carried the same subject into the workplace, where the batteries are behind the backup power for servers and network equipment and inside forklifts and cordless tools, as well as the e-bikes and scooters that employees and tenants wheel in.
Its chief operations officer, Joseph Hightower, put the problem plainly. "Our technicians are finding UPS systems, charging carts and personal e-bikes in rooms that were never designed for them," he said. "Detection and suppression have to match what is in the space today."
Pye-Barker has listed five steps. The first is to walk through the building, write down every place where a battery is stored, charged or installed, and see whether the fire protection plan covers all of them. The second step is buying equipment that a nationally recognized testing laboratory has listed, and charging it with the manufacturer's charger or an approved equivalent. Its other steps deal with supervised charging, kept away from exits and stairwells and never overnight, and training so that staff can tell when a battery has to be taken out of use.
Of the five steps, the one on matching detection and suppression to the hazard matters most for battery rooms. A failing cell vents flammable gas before anyone sees smoke or flame. Pye-Barker therefore wants early-warning detection in these rooms, tied to a monitored alarm, along with ventilation and a suppression approach that has been evaluated for the installation.
Pye-Barker Fire & Safety has more than 250 locations and 9,000 team members, and it provides fire protection and security systems across the US.