Avoiding a charging catastrophe - steps for keeping batteries in your devices from catching fire

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - From car seats to laptops and to phones and E-bikes, reports of batteries catching fire has become almost commonplace.

Among those reports are injuries and deaths - heat being the primary contributor to these fires and we certainly have plenty of that right now.

We love all of our electronic gizmos and gadgets but the hazard experts say they need to be treated as the potential threat that they are.

The video of a North Carolina toddler's burned-up car seat from a lithium button battery in a book should be seen as a wake-up call.

"Until when it touches you or someone you know, you don't really think about it," said Allegheny County Emergency Services Assistant Chief Steve Imbarlina.

Assistant Chief Imbarlina said we need to respect he batteries because we certainly can't avoid them.

"They're in our cell phones, they're in our laptops, they are in our children's toys, [and] they're in our power tools," he said.

That list from the assistant chief is just a small sampling of where these batteries can be found so he gives a cardinal rule.

"Make sure that you are using the correct battery for the correct device," Imbarlina said.

That includes the charger, he said to resist the urge of buying the after-market charging cord.

Most importantly, treat them with care.

"The biggest things that make lithium-ion batteries fail are heat and physical damage," he explained.

The book in the car seat case was due to being left in a hot car. The assistant chief said that when a battery is heated it expands and things that shouldn't mix get mixed and they go up quickly.

"They produce a lot of visible fire and a lot of heat," he said. "More importantly, and along with it, they produce a lot of smoke."

So the assistant chief said to keep these things in mind: avoid charging overnight and never have a plugged-in charging device in bed.

"Once they're charged, take them off the charger," Imarlina said. "Don't leave them perpetually on the charger until the next time you use the device."

That's simply because left on a charger, they can overheat and catch fire. Again, a battery doesn't have to be on a charger to overheat. It can happen in a hot car or near a heat source.

While we're mostly talking about lithium-ion batteries, an overheated or damaged battery of any kind can short out, heat up, and catch fire - even if it's an alkaline battery. However, that is much less frequent.