Fire investigators in Blach Springs say a popular gift item caused an apartment fire this week that forced dozens of people from their homes, including 20 children, the youngest just 3 months old.
Video shared with NBC 5 from a mobile phone showed flames shooting through the roof of the Spring Oaks Apartments along Shepherd Lane late Wednesday night.
Several area agencies responded to the fire, putting out the blaze and ensuring everyone got out safely.
Vivian Rodriguez, her son and sister live in the building. They're among those staying in a nearby hotel for the time being.
"It's a little stressful because, of course, we had Christmas gifts and everything but you know we can't even go inside to get that or anything," said Rodriguez.
In the hours following the incident, Balch Springs Fire Marshal Sean Davis, who is also the assistant fire chief, said they got to work searching for the cause.
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“We look at the fire patterns, the burn patterns and we work from the area [of] least burn to the area of most burn,” he said.
Like "arrows," the burn patterns led investigators to a storage room out on the balcony of a top-floor unit.
APARTMENT FIRE
“There was a hoverboard discovered in the bottom of a closet which was the area of origin for the fire,” said Davis. “It appears the battery went into thermal runaway causing it to overheat and that heat spread to the other combustibles that were stored in that closet.”
Davis said an elderly man who lives in the unit with his two adult daughters was home at the time.
“He states that he smelled something like burnt popcorn smell and something led him to look out there. He opened the closet door and that’s how the fire got out of the closet and into the attic area,” said Davis.
Davis said the self-balancing scooter was not charging and had not been in use leading up to the fire. The elderly resident doesn’t remember the last time he opened the storage room for anything, he said.
The American Red Cross North Texas Region updated earlier estimates about the number of displaced people. The fire damaged or destroyed 20 units, displacing at least 60 people including 20 children.
Davis said he believes this is the first fire sparked by a hoverboard, but similar incidents are not unusual.
“There are cases where it has occurred where these lithium-ion batteries sometimes go into failure and it’s usually found in the cheaper ones that aren’t quite as high quality,” said Davis. “They go into thermal runaway and just overheat.”
In March, the U.S. Consumer Protection Safety Commission recalled over 50,000 hoverboards due to fire risks after two girls died in a house fire linked to the popular gadget.
Over the years, fires have been linked to their lithium-ion battery packs overheating, sparking, catching fire, or even melting.
Davis said he has not been able to identify the brand from the charred remains.
Fortunately, no one was hurt in the fire.
The Red Cross said as many as 19 families impacted by fire or water damage have either moved into available units in the same complex or are staying in hotels with the help of the nonprofit Sharing Life Community Outreach.
"We are also working with partner organizations to connect them with clothing, food boxes, and other household items," said Doyle Rader, spokesperson for the Red Cross.
Davis has a message for the public, especially with the holidays upon us.
“I don’t want to discourage anyone from having electronic gifts. I would say don’t store them in places where they’re going to be around a lot of combustible items,” he said. “When you’re charging them, keep them in an open area, don’t leave them unsupervised.”
