I have a place at a local resort and was there yesterday. Around 4pm I hear my neighbor yelling there’s a fire across the street . I ran over there , owner wasn’t home , and his ryobi battery charger was in a full blaze nasty stinking fire . He had it sitting on a small refrigerator as you can see in the pics. Used a broom to knock the charger off the top of the refrigerator and then put the fire out . What a mess ! Makes me think about leaving my chargers plugged in unattended!
Good on you for putting that fire down! While I'm sure its possible for the charger itself to have malfunctioned, from what I understand, the majority of these "electronics" fires are from the battery...specifically lithium ion batteries. Remember all the hoverboards that were spontaneously combusting a few years back? Yup, junk LI batteries. I've shared this here before, but I had a friend of mine (now deceased) that was given a promotional rechargeable flashlight (LI battery) and it was a good one, not one of these chinese junkers...he only had it a few months when he walks past his office and see's this thing on his desk on fire! He ran in and swatted it onto the floor, then kicked it out into the shop where there was a bare concrete floor and then eventually kicked it outside because the smoke was very thick and smelled toxic (I'm sure it is) When he first told me about this I also thought the charger malfunctioned...he said nope, it was fully charged and just sitting there by itself, not on a charger, not even "on" Makes me nervous when I think about all the LI battery devices we all have laying around the house! Battery Safety : Top 5 Reasons Why Lithium-Ion Batteries Catch Fire — ION Energy
Good Job! Those suckers are scary. I had two dewalt batteries with the chargers cook off on me. I've since said bye to Dewalt lithium Ion. I should have learned the first time not to leave them plugged in.
Nice save! I never leave mine plugged in. When I charge, I do it on a non-flamable surface (looks like what they were doing with it on the fridge - I assume it is metal), and am home the entire time it's charging. I have a couple of chargers / batteries for Ryobi. A couple of years ago one of the chargers made the battery hot, and the charger started giving off an electrical smell (yes, it was the charger not the battery that stunk). Got rid of that charger and that battery is still fine using a different charger.
I used to leave mine plugged in all the time until I read a similar story a couple years ago. Now I don't. Sent from my moto g(7) power using Tapatalk