Fire chief ’s warning as DIYe-bikes spark rise in house blazes
‘They are like bombs waiting to explode’
THE growing popularity of electric bikes is causing a swathe of house fires, an investigation by The Mail on Sunday has revealed.
Fire chiefs are reporting a ‘hugely alarming’ escalation in the number of blazes caused by the batteries on the bikes catching fire while being charged in homes.
London Fire Brigade has revealed there have been 34 e-bike battery fires in the capital alone so far this year, compared with 47 during the whole of 2021. And there is evidence of a similar pattern of fires in other parts of the country.
Equipment bought on the internet is thought to be the principal cause, particularly when standard pedal bikes have been fitted with homeconversion kits.
Last week, a family of seven were taken to hospital after an e-bike battery sparked a blaze that gutted their semi-detached home in Rugeley, Staffordshire, destroying all their possessions.
It follows another blaze last month in a tower block in West London – close to the site of the Grenfell Tower fire. The e-bike battery caught fire while being charged overnight in a 12th-floor flat, leading to the block being evacuated.
In June, a deaf man in Washington, Tyne and Wear, was lucky to escape from his ground-floor flat after his e-bike caught fire while it was charging in his living room. He was sleeping at the time, and was only alerted by the smell of smoke.
That incident came just days after another fire in Liverpool, in which two people were treated for smoke inhalation and minor burns after their e-bike caught fire in their hotel room.
One major e-bike retailer, Fully Charged, is now warning that the batteries that power the machines can amount to ‘bombs waiting to explode’ if they are not charged in accordance with strict guidelines laid out by manufacturers, or are paired with incompatible replacement chargers.
London Fire Brigade’s deputy assistant commissioner, Charlie Pugsley, has also urged people to be aware of the dangers involved in converting their pedal bikes into ebikes using DIY kits bought online.
‘There’s been a massive increase in the number of people using electric bikes,’ Mr Pugsley said. ‘While we’ve dealt with the occasional manufactured e-bike that’s caught fire, it’s more likely to happen when the user has bought a replacement charger that is incompatible.
‘But one of the biggest areas of concern is conversion kits you can fit to ordinary bicycles.’
One in seven cyclists now owns an e-bike, with sales reaching an estimated £315million in 2021, up from
£275million in 2020, according to Mintel. The bikes have an electric motor powered by a lithium-ion battery, which means riders don’t always have to pedal.
While a mid-range e-bike will cost upward s of £3,000, a DIY kit to convert an existing pushbike can cost as little as £200. Widely available online, the kits can be fitted in as little as 30 minutes.
‘I could go online now and buy a conversion kit on eBay for a few hundred quid,’ said Dan Parsons, co-founder of Fully Charged.
‘It’ll have rolled off a factory, more often than not in China, and probably won’t have been rigorously tested for safety. I could then strap it to a cheap bike to create a “Frankenbike”. They’re bombs waiting to explode.’
Last month, Merseyside Fire and Rescue warned people not to use conversion kits, ‘as standard pushbikes converted into electric bikes pose a higher safety risk, due to batteries and chargers often sourced from different suppliers’.
The warning came following one of the worst e-bike fires the brigade had seen, which destroyed the home of a mother and her four children in Huyton, Merseyside. The woman had bought a conversion kit for her eldest son’s pushbike from an eBay supplier.
According to the woman’s brother, James Taylor, the battery began ‘sparking’ and exploded after being unplugged from the socket.
‘My sister went over to unplug it, and as she did it blew up,’ Mr Taylor said. ‘She was holding my 18-month-old niece, who has chronic lung disease and cerebral palsy, so needs an oxygen tank.
‘The fire spread quite quickly and when it hit the oxygen tanks she keeps for the baby, the whole house just blew up.’
Retailers Evans Cycles and Halfords refuse to sell conversion kits. Halfords has said this is because of concerns over their safety.
Assistant Commissioner Pugsley has warned people to check the parts they are using are approved by the manufacturer.
‘We can only hope the next fire we go to isn’t really tragic and someone loses their life,’ he said.