That’s kinda true, in a sense that all batteries use a chemical reaction to generate electricity and a damaged battery can short and thus ignite arbitrarily. But there’s lithium-based batteries like LiFePo₄ that burn significantly less intensely if at all; and there’s lab-only chemistries that are non-flammable. So it’s not really because of the lithium specifically that they burn so well.
You’d think we’d have a better solution for extinguishing this by now. Solid state batteries can’t get here fast enough.
The same thing that makes lithium good for batteries also makes it good for burning for days at a time and reigniting randomly
That’s kinda true, in a sense that all batteries use a chemical reaction to generate electricity and a damaged battery can short and thus ignite arbitrarily. But there’s lithium-based batteries like LiFePo₄ that burn significantly less intensely if at all; and there’s lab-only chemistries that are non-flammable. So it’s not really because of the lithium specifically that they burn so well.