Full Circle Lithium Successfully Extinguishes Persistent C&D Landfill Lithium-Ion Battery Fire
- Fire fully extinguished in under one hour — hot spots cleared within two hours, all smoldering zones resolved within three hours
- FCL-X™ succeeded where conventional suppression methods failed after three days of continuous effort by local fire crews
- Incident underscores a growing U.S. crisis: lithium-ion battery landfill fires are rising sharply with no proven sector-wide suppression solution¹²
TORONTO, June 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ – Full Circle Lithium Corp. (“FCL” or the “Company”) (TSXV: FCLI) (OTCQB: FCLIF) (FSE: K0Q), a leading U.S.-based manufacturer of lithium-ion battery fire extinguishing products, today announced the successful suppression on May 18, 2026, of a persistent construction and demolition (C&D) landfill fire in Evans County, Georgia, believed to have been ignited by an improperly disposed lithium-ion battery. The deployment marks another significant real-world validation of FCL-X™’s proprietary fire suppression technology in one of the most challenging environments facing the waste management industry today.
The Incident
The fire at the Evans County C&D landfill facility burned for approximately three days despite continuous suppression efforts by local fire department crews. Deep-seated combustion within the waste pile created persistent hot spots that continued to reignite beneath the surface — a hallmark of lithium-ion battery-driven landfill fires that conventional water- and foam-based suppression tools are ill-equipped to address.
According to Matt Roper, Vice President of Roper Environmental Services and a waste industry expert involved in the response:
Lithium-ion batteries are becoming one of the most significant fire risks facing waste facilities today.
”When these batteries are crushed, punctured, or damaged during collection and disposal operations, they can enter thermal runaway and ignite surrounding materials. Once that happens inside a landfill or debris pile, the fire can become extremely difficult to access and extinguish. I have responded to many landfill fires, and nothing I have used compares to the effectiveness of FCL-X™.”
Following multiple days of unsuccessful suppression, FCL-X™ was deployed. The results were immediate and definitive:
- Active fire fully extinguished in under one hour
- Remaining hot spots suppressed in less than two hours
- All smoldering areas completely resolved within three hours
— Chad Carver, VP of Sales & Operations at FCL, said:
This incident is exactly why FCL-X™ exists. Lithium-ion battery fires in waste environments are fundamentally different from conventional fires — they burn hotter, reignite more readily, and penetrate deeper into the waste mass than anything traditional suppression systems were designed to handle.
”The Evans County result demonstrates that FCL-X™ is not just an incremental improvement; it is a category-defining solution to an industry crisis that will only grow. We are proud to be delivering real outcomes for first responders and facility operators who have been left without adequate tools for far too long.”
A Growing National Challenge, With No Current Sector-Wide Solution
The Evans County incident is not an isolated event. Lithium-ion battery fires at U.S. waste and landfill facilities have reached alarming levels for which the industry currently has no proven, scalable suppression answer:
¹ The National Waste and Recycling Association (NWRA) estimates that more than 5,000 fires occur annually at U.S. recycling facilities, with a rapidly growing proportion linked to improperly discarded lithium-ion batteries. The rate of catastrophic losses has risen 41% over the past five years, driving facility insurance costs from under $0.20 per $100 of insured property value to as much as $10 per $100.
² 2025 was the worst year on record for publicly reported lithium-ion battery fires in U.S. and Canadian waste facilities since tracking began in 2016, with 448 reported incidents — a 26% increase over the 2016–2021 average. July 2025 alone recorded 56 incidents, the highest single-month total ever observed.
³ Between 2013 and 2020, 64 U.S. waste facilities experienced 245 fires caused by or linked to lithium-ion batteries, spanning landfills, transfer stations, materials recovery facilities (MRFs), and collection vehicles. A single landfill in the Pacific Northwest recorded 124 fires between June 2017 and December 2020 attributable to lithium-ion batteries — a figure that increased from 21 incidents in 2018 to 47 by 2020.
⁴ Studies estimate that 98.3% of lithium-ion batteries ultimately end up in landfills. The U.S. EPA has identified disposed lithium-ion batteries as likely hazardous waste due to ignitability (D001) and reactivity (D003) characteristics, and preliminary data from its 2023–2025 monitoring program found lithium contamination in approximately 25% of public water systems surveyed — underscoring that landfill fires are not merely an operational problem but an environmental one.
The U.S. Market Opportunity
The scale of the unaddressed problem translates directly into a significant commercial opportunity for FCL. Based on publicly available industry data, the Company estimates the U.S. addressable market for specialized lithium-ion battery fire suppression solutions across the waste management sector as follows:
With over 4,100 active landfill facilities operating across the United States — including more than 1,500 C&D debris sites and 2,600+ municipal solid waste (MSW’s) — alongside hundreds of transfer stations, material recycling facilities (MRFs), and tens of thousands of waste collection vehicles, the scale of unprotected lithium fire exposure is substantial and growing. The waste industry currently has no sector-wide solution. Conventional water suppression, foam, and dry chemical agents are largely ineffective against deep-seated lithium thermal runaway. FCL-X™ is purpose-built for this environment.
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Full Circle Lithium Successfully Extinguishes Persistent C&D Landfill Lithium-Ion Battery Fire, source
