Bend house fire points to lithium battery issues
A northwest Bend home was heavily damaged by a fire early Thursday morning that investigators said began when the lithium battery of a charging electric bicycle caught fire.
“I heard a loud pop and then I saw flames shooting out of the garage,” Suzanne Flegel, who lives next door, said later Thursday.
The fire left much of the house destroyed.
“The flames just got out of control. It was really scary,” Flegel said.
Flegel woke up to her dog barking, alerting her to a fire at her neighbor’s house. Within minutes, the fire spread from the garage to the house.
“I mean, flames were just shooting up,” Flegel said.
Flegel was on the phone with 911 as her neighbor rushed his family into safety. Shortly after, Flegel and other neighbors were evacuated as well.
“I was scared for my house,” Flegel said.
A Bend fire official said the lithium battery of the electric bike in the garage was to blame.
“The charger either failed or overcharged those batteries, causing them to expand and actually explode,” said Deputy Fire Marshal Dan Derlacki.
Derlacki said the fire department has seen an uptick in fires caused by lithium batteries in recent months.
“In the last 16 months, we’ve had five of these lithium battery-type fires,” Derlacki said.
Lithium batteries are in our many everyday items, like laptops and cellphones. Experts say lithium batteries are more dangerous than regular batteries because they can explode. Batteries in an electric bike are no more likely to explode, but the battery in an electric bike is much bigger.
“That’s what we saw in this fire — that battery exploded outwards and spread that material around,” Derlacki said.
Derlacki confirmed one person suffered burns in the fire. Even with the $220,000 in losses and destruction, the night could have ended much worse, had the homeowner not heard smoke alarms sound and found the bike on fire in the garage.
“I was just hoping that they were getting out of their house, because it looked really bad and it sounded really bad. Like all these loud pops,” Flegel said.
