A Jarrahdale family is tonight warning others to be extra cautious when leaving devices unsupervised on charge.
It comes after they lost everything in a house fire, started when they left their iPad on charge for just a few hours.
Jarrod and Java King’s lives have been upended after the tablet was left on charge on Thursday morning on their bedside table.
It overheated, setting fire to the bed, then quickly spreading through their home, about 45km south-east of Perth.
“You kind of take it for granted I guess,” Mr King told 9News.
“It’s something you think is so normal and it can do so much damage.”
Emergency services were called to the Jarrahdale Road property just after 1pm.
The family’s possessions gone, including their three-year-old girl’s toys.
The family cat could not be saved.
The young couple and their daughter now left with nothing but they’re grateful their dogs survived.
“It all seemed to go pretty quickly, it was sort of within about half an hour, everything was gone,” Mr King said.
They thought they were being safe, using only an Apple charger.
“Yeah, so it actually came with the iPad … it was only, say, a year old,” he said.
Firefighters warned any device with lithium batteries could potentially start a fire – especially tablets and mobiles phones.
“Don’t leave anything on charge at all while you’re not home,” Mark Hayes from the Department of Fire and Emergency Services said.
“Know what you’ve put on charge and turn it off before you leave the house.”
Leaving phones on charge in bedrooms overnight is also discouraged.
“Charge it in an area close to water,” Hayes said.
“I charge my phone in the kitchen, so it’s close to the sink.”
Lithium ion battery fires are on the rise. There have been more than 100 so far this year in WA alone, more than double the number in 2020.
The King family’s home now another statistic they never dreamed they’d be part of.
“It can happen so quickly, it’s pretty scary stuff,” Mr King said.
Family have started fundraising to help the Kings rebuild.
