A woman nearly escaped a fire explosion at her Ringwood family home after a faulty charger used to power an e-cigarette caught fire.
The incident, which took place on July 14 in Southampton Road, Ringwood, is the latest to add to the list of incidents in the UK involving the use of cheap and inappropriate chargers.
The woman, who fortunately escaped the explosion, said she was in an upstairs bedroom of the house when the smoke alarm alerted her about the fire. She said after discovering the fire, she managed to escape downstairs before the explosion, caused by the heating of the pressurised canister of an air horn in the room, took place.
Investigators from Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service traced the cause of the fire explosion to be a USB plug that had an e-cigarette charging in it. They found that the overheated e-cigarette started a fire, which led to the explosion of the air horn canister.
Hampshire Fire and Rescue investigator Dan Tasker said the team discovered that the woman’s son had lost the original charger that came with the e-cigarette kit and so had plugged the e-cigarette into a different USB charger which later on got overheated causing the canister to expand and explode.
He said that e-cigarettes can be susceptible to overheating due to the type of battery they contain. It is to be noted that devices should be charged only using appropriate plugs and chargers.
Tasker warned people about devastating consequences for using the wrong charger with the wrong device. The team however was extremely relieved to find that no-one was harmed in this incident.
