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Several overcome by fumes from overheated phone charger doused with water at Mission Hill school
By adamg on Mon, 11/07/2016 - 4:29pm
The Boston Fire Deparment reports several people at the Manville School, 53 Parker Hill Ave., took ill this morning when somebody took an overheating phone charger into a restroom and poured water on it, resulting in fumes.
Firefighters took the remains of the charger outside as EMTs took six adults and one student to the hospital to be checked out. WHDH reports all are expected to be fine.
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Comments
Don't they teach that to kids anymore?
Everyone knows (or knew, when I was a kid) not to put water on any type of electrical fire...sheez.
O Modern Life
Anyone know what we are supposed to do with these things when they overheat?
When my son's Samsung phone overheated, I used tongs to put it in a roasting pan and took it out to our concrete patio where it would have no way to start a fire - but not everyone has all those things handy.
If there is a way to take care of overheating electronics/lithium battery items, it would be good for many people to know. Especially since our lives revolve around the damn things now.
#1. Don't pour water on it.
Lithium reacts with water. Therefore don't try to put it out with water. You did the right thing by placing it on a non-combustible surface and placing it outside to wait for it to burn out. The only other thing could be to have a Class D (non-water) fire extinguisher handy.
DC brick
Seems the part outside thermal specified limits was the ac/DC brick, not the phone battery itself?
Some of these modern bricks are just diodes, ICs, coil and a circuit board. So perhaps cyanide or other mess from the burnt plastics?
Recommend disconnect from mains and let cool outside.
this is complete nonsense
They're Lithium ION batteries. There is very little lithium in a lithium-ion battery.
A ~3000Ahr cell has less than 1 gram of lithium in it. The HUGE pack in a Macbook Pro? About 6-7 grams.
Battery companies, when they ask people to deactivate a battery, typically instruct people to put the battery in salt water.
The FAA Recommends Using Water For Laptop Battery Fires
Baking soda is great for grease or other electrical fires, but it won't extinguish lithium battery fires! Ideally, use a Halon extinguisher to extinguish the flames first, but then use water to cool the battery and prevent additional cells from exploding into flames. If you don't have a Halon extinguisher, just use water or non-alcoholic beverages.
Don't try to smother it with something and don't use ice because these will act as an insulator, causing the battery to heat up and explode again. Whatever you do, try to get as far away from it as possible!
This FAA video shows what happens when lithium batteries catch fire, and different ways to extinguish them:
( I wouldn't have known this if Swirly hadn't asked the question )
Re: Swirly's Question — I Asked People Who Are Smarter Than Me…
… and they're looking into it to find out for sure.
⫸ The best thing is always to evacuate the building while calling the Fire Department, instead of trying to fight the fire yourself. ⫷
I did find a reference saying that Lithium batteries are single-use and can't be recharged. For example, button-cell batteries (e.g.: CR2032) are often Lithium batteries and they're not rechargeable.
Lithium-ion batteries are rechargeable, so it stands to reason that rechargeable devices like laptops and cell phones will have Lithium-ion batteries and not elemental Lithium batteries for their main power source — however I'm not an authority about this, so don't just take my word for it.
If my knowledgable friends come up with clear advice, I will certainly pass it along.
This headline is confusing,
This headline is confusing, since there is a BPS school called Mission Hill School. But you mean a school in Mission Hill.