Overnight Charged Lithium Battery Destroys Sydney Unit, 18 Residents Forced to Flee

Four South American travellers were sleeping in the unit when one of them heard a small explosion. They managed to escape unharmed but lost everything.

An e-bike lithium battery causes a fire while being charged overnight at a unit in Sydney, Australia, on Jan. 19, 2023. Courtesy of Fire and Rescue New South Wales

A fire has destroyed a unit in an eastern suburb of Sydney after the residents left an e-bike lithium battery charging overnight.

According to Fire and Rescue New South Wales (FRNSW), the fire broke out on Jan. 19, at a unit on Curlewis Street, North Bondi, before 4 a.m.

Four South American travellers were sleeping inside the unit when one of them heard a small explosion and woke the other occupants up.

The four tried to escape the smoke-filled building, but only two people managed to run outside through the front door. The other two occupants were forced to escape via the window because of the thick smoke.

Firefighters quickly arrived at the scene, and they were able to contain the fire within the unit before extinguishing it.

FRNSW said it was thanks in part to the unit’s automatic fire door, which limited the spread of fire and smoke.

Although the fire did not spread to nearby buildings, authorities evacuated 14 people from adjacent units as a precaution.

While the unit occupants were lucky to escape the fire, they lost all their personal belongings, including passports, phones, and bank records.

E-bike battery Sparks Blaze in Bedroom

Through an investigation, authorities concluded that the fire was caused by an e-bike battery that ignited while being charged overnight in a bedroom.

A video provided by FRNSW showed that most of the unit was damaged, with a bedroom completely destroyed.

FRNSW spokesman Adam Dewberry warned Australians about the risk of charging lithium batteries at night.

“Don’t charge them when you’re asleep. You don’t smell smoke when you’re asleep, and we’ve had a couple of events now with lucky escapes, and the battery has failed and caught fire while the residents were asleep,” he said, as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.

“Our advice is just don’t do it, and make sure you have working smoke alarms.”

Proposal to Ban E-Bike, E-Scooter Charging Inside Apartments

The fire came just a week after a peak body representing strata owners in the country proposed a law to ban apartment residents from charging e-bikes or e-scooters inside their homes, due to an increase in the number of lithium-battery-related fires.

“We’re not saying ban the things. We’re just saying mitigate the risk and just be cautious and sensible,” the Owners Corporation Network (OCN) board chair Fred Tuckwell said.

He stated that the risks mostly came from modified, damaged, or cheaper unsafe electric products and warned apartment residents not to use such devices.

“If you’ve got a high-risk device, like the cheap imports or something that’s damaged, and then you take that into a house or an apartment building, you’re actually asking for trouble,” he said.

“Don’t buy cheap junk, don’t hot them up, and don’t put them in the fire egress path.”

FRNSW recorded 185 lithium battery-related fires in the year leading up to Dec. 8, 2023, an increase from 165 incidents in 2022.