No injuries were reported after an e-bike battery ignited and exploded shortly after being removed from a home in Cobourg, Ont., on Sunday afternoon.
According to Kim Gelineau, her husband went into the basement to change the batteries on his one-year-old e-bike.
However, Gelineau said one of the batteries — not on a charger — was inexplicably feeling “hot.” She says her husband decided to take it outside and place it in a tin bail to cool.
However, she says “within a minute being outside,” smoke began to emanate from the battery. The smoke turned to flames and the battery then “popped,” said Gelineau, who captured the incident on video from inside her home.
Battery debris scattered around a four-metre radius in front of the home. No one was injured.
“If he hadn’t gone down (stairs) we would have lost the house for sure,” she said.
The Cobourg Fire Department was called and examined the scene and inside the home.
The cause of the fire is not yet known.
Gelineau says she considers themselves lucky they discovered the battery and that it did not explode during the night when they were sleeping and might not have heard the sound.
“I like the idea of the battery bikes and we’ll probably get another one, but we’ll keep the battery outside in a special container of some sort,” she said.
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