Knoxville Fire Chief Cal Wyman tells KNIA/KRLS News there has been an increase nationally in fires caused by lithium ion batteries. Will Munley, a Knoxville firefighter explained what to watch for when using the batteries.  “Essentially the biggest thing we want to put in there is that these lithium ion batteries, they are pretty detectable. You detect when they are going to do this (heat up). The heat if you have a cell phone on the charger for a long amount of time and you grab it off you can feel the heat. That’s the same concept of a lithium ion battery running away. With the hover boards and electric scooters the heat from the lithium ion batteries is not going away. You just continue said process where we unplug our cell phone and the heat goes away, it dissipates. But with these hover boards, electric scooter, even electric vehicles, what is happening, what is heating up that run away heat essentially is not going away. It’s just continuing to build up to the point it catches on fire.”

Lithium ion batteries store a large amount of energy in a small amount of space. Sometimes the batteries are not used the right way; batteries not designed for a specific use can be dangerous.

Like any product, a small number of these batteries are defective. They can overheat, catch fire or explode.