Of course you can extinguish a battery fire with a fire extinguisher, or just water. The problem is that thermal runaway will make the battery really hot again, which will reignite anything flammable around the battery. So you need to keep it cool for a long while, generally by spraying or submerging it in water.

We actually had an issue with this at Robocup one year, where one of the teams charged their battery at 3C and then blew it up. We didn't have a Class D extinguisher within reach, so we blasted it with a CO2 extinguisher while someone ran to get a class D extinguisher. The battery kept burning after blasting it with the CO2 extinguisher, but at a much reduced pace, and the perpetrating team took a selfie with their burning battery.