Fire Hazards Associated with Lithium-Ion Batteries Highlighted by St. Johns County

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Fire Prevention Week is Oct. 5th through Oct. 11th. Fire departments all over the country are sounding the alarm about how to prevent the most common fires but in St. John’s County, fire officials are mostly concerned with the batteries that power your smart phones, power tools, and e-bikes.

“So lithium-ion batteries are pretty much everywhere,” says Chris Naff, the public information officer with St. John’s County Fire Rescue. “They’re on your cell phones. They’re in golf carts; they’re in pretty much everything we own.”

Lithium-ion batteries are essentially a type of rechargeable battery that are used in everything from power tools to electric vehicles and e-bikes, and if they’re not charged properly, or are charged for too long can be a huge fire risk.

“The lithium inside the batteries themselves, once it overheats, it creates thermal run away, so lithium just runs away basically and creates a thermal reaction inside the battery cell and it just it goes and goes and goes until it’s uncontrollable,” said Naff.

Naff says these fires are becoming more common as golf cart communities grow in popularity particularly in the northern portion of St. John’s County.

“Cars, e-bikes, e-scooters, that’s where we’re seeing about 60 to 70% of our fires being started from, in northeast part of the county, northwest part of the county, realistically all over the county, because as we get bigger, we’re getting golf cart communities,” said Naff.

But it’s not the batteries themselves that are bad. Experts like Chris Manrell, owner of Golf Cart World in St. Augustine, say it’s usually someone using the wrong charging cable or cord that causes an issue.

“I’ve seen people use 50 to 75 ft. extension cords that they would use for the Christmas lights that pull nothing that are very thin that aren’t rated to charge, you know, this type of machinery. Bad idea,” said Manrell.

Manrell also says another problem is people trying to fix things themselves.

“So most of the fires that you hear of with golf carts, whether it’s lead acid or lithium is the DIYers (sic), you know, they go home, they don’t want to pay for something like LED lights that comes standard on a golf cart,” says Manrell. “They go and buy a cheap component. It’s called a reducer, so they reduce the voltage down to a proper voltage so that those accessories can handle the load. The problem is that they’re not good products. They’re not good components.”

Manrell says his advice is whether it’s a golf cart, e-bike or scooter, keep these safety tips in mind.

“Check your battery every, you know, quarter, just go and check the connections, the positives and negatives,” says Manrell. “Check your on and off button. Most batteries have an on and off switch. Check it to make sure it goes on and it goes off. Don’t use an extension cord. Try to plug it directly into the wall. If you do have to use an extension cord, use an extension cord that’s 15 feet or shorter and make sure that the gauge of the extension cord is thicker and a higher gauge than what your charging cable is.”