Fire and Explosion Hazards in Energy Systems

Dear Colleagues,

Serious fire and explosion incidents in energy systems have occurred recently, including large-scale battery storage facilities, oil and chemical plants, oil refineries, and coal mining, as well as the warehousing storage of energy products, which pose a tremendous risk to life and property losses, environmental pollution and eco-system damage.  For instance, Moss Landing, California, the world’s largest battery storage facility, experienced two fires with explosions in January and March 2025, and Hwaseong, South Korea, experienced an explosion and fire at a lithium battery factory, which killed over 20 workers in June 2025). In addition, Roseland, Louisiana, experienced an explosion and fire at Smitty's Supply lubricant manufacturing plant in August 2025. These incidents remind us that the ongoing acceleration in traditional energy demand and  new energy technologies with emerging hazards (e.g., hydrogen, fuel cell, lithium-ion battery) being introduced call for an in-depth examination of fire and explosion safety engineering in the production, storage, transportation and distribution of energy. The safer the energy, the more sustainable the energy.

We are pleased to invite you to submit your contribution to this Special Issue, which is intended to give an overview of current fire and explosion hazards in energy systems. This will be published in the Fire journal, including case study and investigation, prevention and mitigation, and perspectives on fire and explosion hazards during the life cycle of traditional and new energy carriers, devices, and systems.

This Special Issue is devoted to covering the above-cited themes and both original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas and topics (suggested) may include the following:

• Oil, gas, organic solvent, and coal plant explosion causes, mitigation, and protection;
• Fire hazards in energy harvesting systems (photovoltaic cells, wind turbines, etc.);
• Fire risk assessment study for emerging energy storage systems (batteries, hydrogen storage, etc.);
• Landfill fire hazards caused by organic solid waste or spent batteries;
• Fire and explosion hazards during the life cycle of energy carrier (production, storage, logistics, distribution, disposal, and/or recycling);
• Fire and explosion case studies and investigations.

Prof. Dr. Dejian Wu
Dr. Qi Jing
Dr. Pengliang Li
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fire is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.