There’s already tools to deal with lithium fires, class D fire extinguishers, sand and vermiculite. When I worked heavily with lithium non-rechargables we had lithium disaster plans for fires, explicitly in that was alerting fire fighters that it’s a combustible metal fire so they can react accordingly, those fires need to be smothered afaik, water was a big no no.
Generally though, the plan was, escape and enforce a quarantine zone because primary cells give off nasty stuff, if you can drop it in a bucket of vermiculite if it’s out of the containment vessels and pretty much let them do their thing. Then once it seems like it’s done, wait more time to make sure it’s actually safe with 30 minute gas tests, then package them for safe transport.
Totally fair, awareness is a big thing too, fire crews are professionals so I do think they made the best choice with what they were given, every firefighter I’ve met will absolutely do an assessment before doing anything.
Don’t know their situation, were they just told vehicle fire not lithium fire? Maybe more lithium specific crews/equipment in the future, maybe battery compartments that can help contain? (As I said, with lithium batteries I’ve worked with in the past, pressure vessels, if they went off it was at least contained to inside that, they’d vent gasses still but at least the threat of fire was minimised)