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Lithium ion battery fires have been on the rise across the country since about 2019 due to the increasing number of e-bikes and scooters on the road. Cheddar’s own Ashley Mastronardi spoke to a business owner who was personally affected by an e-bike blaze.

NEW YORK — The explosion early on a June morning ignited a blaze that engulfed a New York City shop filled with motorized bicycles and their volatile lithium-ion batteries. Billowing smoke quickly killed four people asleep in apartments above the burning store.

As the ubiquity of e-bikes has grown, so has the frequency of fires and deaths blamed on the batteries that power them, prompting a campaign to establish regulations on how the batteries are manufactured, sold, reconditioned, charged and stored.

Consumer advocates and fire departments, particularly in New York City, are urging the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to establish mandatory safety standards and confiscate noncompliant imports when they arrive at the border or shipping ports, so that unsafe e-bikes and poorly manufactured batteries don't reach streets and endanger homes.

A cyclist stops to look at a pile of e-bikes in the aftermath of a deadly June 20 fire in New York's Chinatown, which authorities say started at an e-bike shop and spread to upper-floor apartments. Federal officials are considering a crackdown on defective lithium-ion batteries because of a rash of deadly fires.

These aren’t typical fires, said New York City Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh. The batteries don’t smolder; they explode.

“The number of fire incidents has rapidly increased. Other cities across the country have begun seeing these issues as well, and municipalities that are not yet experiencing this phenomenon may be facing similar incidents in the future," Kavanagh told the commission Thursday at a forum focused on e-bikes and lithium-ion batteries.

“We have reached a point of crisis in New York City, with ion batteries now a top cause of fatal fires in New York,” she told commissioners.

With some 65,000 e-bikes zipping through its streets — more than any other place in the U.S. — New York City is the epicenter of battery-related fires. There have been 100 such blazes so far this year, resulting in 13 deaths, already more than double the six fatalities last year.

A delivery worker rides a motorized bicycle July 25 in New York, the epicenter of battery-related fires. “We have reached a point of crisis in New York City, with ion batteries now a top cause of fatal fires in New York,” New York City Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh said.

Nationally, there were more than 200 battery-related fires reported to the commission — an obvious undercount — from 39 states over the past two years, including 19 deaths blamed on so-called micromobility devices that include battery-powered scooters, bicycles and hoverboards.

New York’s two U.S. senators, Democrats Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, introduced legislation last month that would set mandatory safety standards for e-bikes and the batteries that power them.

Because mandatory standards don't exist, Schumer said, poorly made batteries have flooded the U.S., increasing the risk of fires.

In many cases, authorities have been challenged to track the source of batteries manufactured overseas, many of them bought online or from aftermarket dealers.

Earlier this year, New York City urgently enacted a sweeping package of local laws intended to crack down on defective batteries, including a ban on the sale or rental of e-bikes and batteries that aren’t certified as meeting safety standards by an independent product testing lab.

The new rules also outlaw tampering with batteries or selling refurbished batteries made with lithium-ion cells scavenged from used units.

Meanwhile, New York City officials also announced they had received a $25 million federal grant for e-bike charging stations across the city, which fire marshals hope will reduce the risk of fires.

A firefighter looks through debris in the aftermath of a Jun3 20 fire authorities say started at an e-bike shop and spread to upper-floor apartments, where smoke killed four people who were sleeping.

“When they fail, they fail quite spectacularly,” Kavanagh said in interview last week. “Once one of these ignites, there is a huge volume of fire, often so much so that the person in their home can’t get out and the firefighters can’t get in to get them."

Such was the case in April when two siblings, a 7-year-old boy and his 19-year-old sister, died when a scooter battery ignited a fire in Queens.

Because of the fire hazard, some residential buildings have banned e-bikes. Last summer, the New York City Housing Authority sought to prohibit tenants in all of its 335 developments from keeping or charging e-vehicles in their units, only to back down a few months later after protests from delivery workers.

Use of motorized bicycles grew dramatically in the city during the COVID-19 pandemic as homebound people turned more to food delivery workers for meals and groceries.

With the rash of fires, delivery workers like Lizandro Lopez say they are now more mindful about precautions.

“As soon as the battery is charged, I disconnect it. You shouldn’t leave it charging for too long,” Lopez said in Spanish, “because if you leave it on there too long, that’s when you can cause a fire.”

E-bike batteries rely on the same chemistry to generate power as the lithium-ion batteries in cellphones, laptops and most electric vehicles — products that were initially prone to overheating.

Tighter regulations, safety standards and compliance testing drastically reduced the risk of fires in such devices, according to Robert Slone, the senior vice president and chief scientist for UL Solutions.

The same can happen with e-bike batteries, he said, if they are made to comply with established safety standards. One feature most of these batteries lack is the ability to automatically shut off to prevent overheating and “thermal runaways” that lead to explosions and fires.

“We just need to make them safe, and there is a way to make them safe through testing and certification," Slone said, “given the history that we’ve seen in terms of fires and injuries and unfortunately, deaths as well — not just in New York, but across the country and around the world.”

Like earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters, wildfires won’t give you advance warning before they strike. At most, you might learn about a fire in your area a few days before it threatens your home. Still, fires from natural causes accounted for just 1.6 percent of all residential fires in 2015. Fires caused by cooking, heating and electrical malfunction are much more common.

In other words, household objects you use every day are far more likely to cause a fire than Mother Nature (This Is Us fans know this all too well). Stacker surveyed recommendations from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Fire Protection Association, American Red Cross, and other experts to compile this list of 28 steps everyone can take to prevent a fire or minimize fire damage. Although you can never be completely prepared for an emergency, following these recommendations will at least increase your household’s fire safety. Before disaster strikes, take these 28 steps to reduce your risk of both residential fires and wildfires.

Every household should have a solid emergency plan. Talk to your family about how you will receive emergency alerts, what you will do if you need to seek shelter, where you will go if you need to evacuate, and how you will communicate if you’re separated.

An emergency supply kit typically includes enough supplies to allow you to survive for several days without food or water, in addition to go-bags for each member of your family. If your home catches on fire, you might not have time to take your entire emergency kit—but if you keep your go-bags in an easily accessible place, you might be able to grab them on your way out.

Properly installed smoke alarms can reduce your risk of dying in a fire by half. The National Fire Alarm code requires new homes to have interconnected hardwired smoke alarms with backup batteries on every level of the home, outside each sleeping area and inside each bedroom. Existing homes must have smoke alarms on every level and outside each sleeping area, at a minimum.

All the smoke alarms in the world won’t do you any good if they’re not in working order. Just ask the Pearsons from This Is Us. Press the test button on the alarm at least once a month to ensure that it still works.

Fires also create the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. Any time fuel burns, it produces this colorless, odorless gas. High amounts of carbon monoxide can be poisonous, so it’s especially dangerous in enclosed spaces. Install a battery-operated carbon monoxide detector close to your bedroom—it’s important that the alarm could wake you up in the middle of the night.

Demonstrate both the smoke alarm and carbon monoxide detector for the entire household to ensure everyone is familiar with the sound of the alarm. That way, if they do ever go off, you won’t waste precious time wondering what that funny noise means.

If a fire starts, you might have two minutes or less to get out of the house. Create a fire escape plan so every member knows exactly what to do. You should know two ways to escape from every room, in case the usual exits are blocked by flames.

Plan timed escape drills twice a year to ensure that every member of your family could escape quickly and easily in case of a fire.

It’s always a good idea to learn how to administer first aid. After a fire, you might need to help a family member before emergency responders arrive. Sign up for a first aid class near you to learn the basics.

If your clothes catch fire, you’ll need to follow three simple steps: stop, drop and roll. Rolling on the ground will smother the flames on your clothing so you can continue escaping safely.

Electrical distribution or lighting equipment played a role in 57 percent of all house fires from 2010 to 2014, according to the National Fire Protection Association. Faulty wiring specifically caused the majority of those fires. Reduce your risk of electrical fires by hiring an electrician to check your home’s wiring.

Fix or replace frayed cords and exposed wires right away to keep your home safe from rogue sparks.

Plugging in too many electrical devices to an outlet can overload the circuit, generating heat that wears down internal wires and can eventually start a fire. Never plug more than two appliances into the same outlet or use multiple extension cords to power several devices from the same outlet.

Heating fires are the second leading cause of house fires, according to the U.S. Fire Administration. Prevent potential fires by having your fireplaces, furnaces, and chimneys cleaned and inspected at least once a year.

Be careful not to store firewood, fuel or flammable materials near the fireplace, furnace, space heater or other heat sources. You don’t want an errant spark to find anything that could burst into flames easily.

Always monitor open flames, whether that means the fireplace, the stove or a lit candle. Don’t leave any fires—even controlled ones—unattended.

FEMA recommends keeping a 30-foot defensible zone around the exterior of any building to prevent wildfires from spreading. This means clearing any debris that could catch fire—dead leaves, pine needles, shrubs and other flammable vegetation—within 30 feet of your home.

Review your homeowners or renters insurance policies regularly so you know what will and will not be covered in case of a fire.

If the worst happens and your home catches fire, you’ll need an inventory of everything you own to submit to your insurance company. The easiest way to take an inventory of all of your possessions is by photographing your home. Walk from room to room, taking photos from every angle. Pay special attention to your closet, bookshelves, and valuables.

If you have time, turn on all of the lights inside and outside your home to make the house more visible through heavy smoke.

It’s also worth disconnecting your automatic garage door opener so you can open the garage door by hand if you lose power. Again, only take this precaution if you have enough time.

If you have time, you might also want to move flammable furniture into the center of the room away from doors and windows and remove window treatments like drapes and blinds. This will reduce the chances of fire entering your home.

Practice shutting off your gas supply in advance so you can limit the amount of fuel a wildfire will have. Again, only do this if you have enough time before evacuating.

Run a bath, fill sinks, connect garden hoses and fill any other large containers you can find with water if you have time before evacuating. This could prove useful to firefighters and allow you to put out small spot fires later on.

You might also want to buy a radio that receives NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards, a national network of stations that broadcast weather information from the National Weather Service. This could allow you to stay up to date on all the latest information from officials in case a fire knocks out power to your region.