A family in the New South Wales Hunter Valley has been left devastated after a small lithium battery used to charge a remote control car sparked a fire that destroyed their home.
Lucy Harragon and her husband Taylor had come up with a simple plan to entertain their children, aged four and five, last Sunday.
“We went out to do some shopping and we were going to come home and have a fun afternoon with the kids and race the (remote-control) cars,” Lucy said.
With that in mind, Taylor had put one of the toy cars on to charge in the garage of their Cessnock home earlier that morning.
The family left the house for the shops at about 11am.
Around two hours later, they got a panicked call from a friend.
“Their mum had driven past our house and they saw that smoke was coming from the garage,” Lucy said.
In an attempt to raise the alarm, a passerby rang the doorbell, but no-one was home.
Other neighbours called triple zero.
Meanwhile, the Harragon family raced home, in what was the longest 30-minute drive of their lives.
“We stopped the car on the corner of the road and we just jumped out,” Lucy said.
“We had kids in the car and we had been just trying to explain to them, we may not have a house when we get there.
“How do you explain that to your children? It’s heartbreaking.”
While the fire had been mostly contained by the time they arrived, the sight the family was met with was horrific.
“It was all just rubble, the roof was caving in and the beams were falling down. It was pretty intense,” Lucy said.
While the family were able to salvage a few sentimental items, most of their belongings were destroyed.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help the family get through Christmas.
Police officers were able to sift through the charred remains in the garage and find the lithium battery, confirming it as the cause of the fire.
The fire at the Harragon family home comes amid a dramatic surge in the number of destructive blazes started by lithium batteries.
Last year, Fire and Rescue NSW responded to 267 fires involving lithium batteries.
While batteries for e-bikes, e-scooters, e-skateboards have traditionally been the most common culprits, those used in small portable devices, such as shavers, phones, electric toothbrushes and toys recently overtook them as the leading cause of battery-related fires.
EV or hybrid vehicles only accounted for two of the fires that Fire and Rescue NSW responded to last year.
Lucy said she and her husband had been left stunned by the devastation the small lithium battery had wreaked on their home.
“It was the smallest battery ever, it was super tiny,” she said.
However, she hoped her family’s nightmarish experience would help warn other people about the risks of lithium batteries.
“We wouldn’t generally leave them on charge, but my husband said he just forgot,” she said.
“It’s a simple thing of, if you do forget, this is what happens. So people just need to be really mindful of that.”
Tips to prevent battery fires
- Never sleep or leave home with your lithium-battery-powered devices charging.
- Don’t leave them constantly on charge.
- If lithium batteries are damaged or compromised, dispose of them properly. Don’t throw them out in the rubbish, they can start garbage truck or rubbish tip fires when compacted.
- Don’t leave devices charging on beds, sofas or around highly flammable materials.
- Try to charge devices outside if possible.
- Always buy reputable lithium-battery brands and never “mix and match” components.
