Illegal lithium battery repair shop in a private home caught fire and burned apartment building
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11 people have died in lithium battery related house fires in NYC alone since 2001. A 67-year old woman was critically injured in Brooklyn last Tuesday when heavy fire started in what was described as an illegal battery repair shop in a residential home.
According to CBS News, fire investigators found dozens of e-bike batteries inside a home in a three-story building, and said the batteries caused the fire on Tuesday morning.
Someone had been running a battery repair operation in the private home, which fire investigators said is a major fire hazard.
The FDNY said the fire was surrounding the top floor of the building, which trapped the 67-year-old woman. Firefighters rescued her and she is now hospitalized.
"There was incredibly heavy fire on arrival," FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh said in a press conference.
According to the fire commissioner, the cause of the fire was e-bikes and e-bike batteries, lithium-ion batteries.
The FDNY states lithium-ion batteries caused 220 fires in 2022 and killed six people.
The New York Post wrote in a recent post that fire officials in New York claims there have been 1,563 structural fires in the city in 2023 already – and 15 of them are being probed as lithium-ion battery related, with one reported death and 25 injured.
The New York Post states, making reference to FDNY statistics, that Lithium ion batteries fires are now on fourth place - after electrical fires, portable heaters and smoking - as the as the leading causes of fire in the city in 2023.
In less than two years, 11 people died and 251 were injured in NYC fires started by lithium-ion batteries used in e-bikes and e-scooters, the FDNY said, according to the NYPost.com.
In 2021, four persons died and 79 were injured in 104 lithium-ion battery related fires, fire officials allegedly said. In 2022, the numbers climbed to six people killed and 142 inured in 220 battery-related fires.
Photo Credit: The New York Police Department