More cellphones are bursting into flames
DANGER: Powerful lithium-ion batteries are volatile
EDMONTON — Twice during the past week, Alberta families have had to flee for their lives after a charging cellphone burst into flames, part of a rare worldwide phenomenon in which smartphones transform into Presto logs.
In Rimbey, Alta., 16-yearold Josh Schultz woke up surrounded by flames after his iPhone combusted in the middle of the night. The family got the blaze under control, but not before Schulz suffered third-degree burns and the house was rendered temporarily uninhabitable.
Three days later, an Edmonton fourplex was evacuated early in the morning after a charging cellphone shot out flames. The fire department blamed “electrical malfunction.” Smoke and fire damage was estimated at $175,000.
The phenomenon of exploding cellphones is known worldwide.
U.S. teenagers have been sent diving for cover after their pants have combusted.
Airline passengers in Australia and Israel have been subject to the terrifying experience of a smartphone erupting in the cabin.
In Phoenix, Ariz., a man emerged uninjured from a pedicab crash, only to have thick smoke begin issuing from his jeans. The phone was bent in the crash and burned through the man’s pants, underwear and skin until he tossed it to the sidewalk.
Flaming smartphones have been attributed to overheating and knock-off charger cables, as well as manufacturing defects spawned by filling the world with two billion smartphones.
“Where there’s an electric current flowing through a circuit, there’s a chance that a component will overheat and start a fire,” a 2013 article on Android Authority reads.
“Smartphones make no difference, and, with adoption rates growing every day, accidents are bound to happen.”
What makes smartphones particularly explosive is their lithium-ion batteries, which are packed with energy and slightly more volatile than disposable alkaline batteries.
Some air freight companies have banned the shipment of smartphone batteries after a Boeing 747 cargo plane plowed into the desert outside Dubai when a shipment of lithium-ion batteries caught fire.
Last year, the London Fire Brigade warned Britons to avoid knock-off iPhone chargers.
“I was shocked at how potentially dangerous these chargers are,” fire investigator Andrew Vaughan-Davies said. “There have been some near misses in the last few months and, unless people stop buying them, it’s only a matter of time before we are called to a fatal fire.”
The government of New South Wales, Australia, issued a similar warning against “non-compliant USB style chargers.” In that case, the cause for the warning was the electrocution of a 28-year-old woman.
In Rimbey, the destruction could have been prevented, firefighters said.
They blamed the fact the iPhone had been left to charge under bedcovers.
“It got smothered enough that it couldn’t get rid of any heat, and it eventually got too hot,” said John Weisgerber, chief of the Rimbey volunteer fire department.