Firefighter's iPhone 4 "Spontaneously Caught Fire" While Charging

[kolax]

I usually snooze after my iPhone alarm goes off. If my iPhone went up in flames, then I'd definitely get out of bed.

 

[lamboman]

In the past few months an iPhone started smoking on an airplane and one caught on fire while charging, that's not exactly a "suspicious amount" lol

I'm sure there were more...? I'm positive I've read more than two! Maybe I'm insane...:S

 

[rmwebs]

Does it make me a blind fanboy or just naive to think that this happens to electronics all the time but this case gets reported because it is Apple?

Well we're on an Apple fan site, so you're very unlikely to hear if a Nokia 3210 caught fire on here . Generally products obviously dont do this, however I cant think of any other company in recent history that has had to recall products due to exploding batteries, other than Dell. IIRC they had issues with chargers a few years abo.

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Here's a couple of Samsung incidents, that were barely spoken about:

http://gizmodo.com/5539192/a-cellphone-exploded-in-my-face

Not really something you should be shocked about given the link you provided. Gizmodo is probably the most unreliable tech news site out there.

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I am not entirely convinced this is actually true. There have been a suspicious amount of iPhone 4s setting alight lately. Not saying it is definitely untrue, but it seems that one does it, another several do straight afterwards.

Unless of course they are from the same batch, but again we have no evidence of this, and at the rate this is happening, the investigation and recall would be particularly rapid.

They wouldn't have given it to Apple if it was false. A full analysis on the device will show the cause, and it would be very obvious to them if it was a fake. What possible benefit has a local fire department got in lying about this?

Personally I'd say that if this keeps happening, Apple will have to start looking at a small recall of suspect batches (we're talking only a few thousand devices here, not some big scale recall). The last thing they need is to be sued when someones face gets burnt!

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what's the fuss
no one reports anything when their non-apple product catches fire
i've heard of friends' nokia's catching fire back in the day, do they post it on the web?

Well they wouldn't post it on an APPLE fansite...why the heck do you think the post exists? It belongs on mac rumors.

 

[Floris]

Does it make me a blind fanboy or just naive to think that this happens to electronics all the time but this case gets reported because it is Apple?

Well, this IS an Apple news web site. Not general electronics r Us rumors .com - You're free to browse that web site instead if you want flaming toaster scandal news, blah blah. #foreveralone.

 

[moonman239]

I sleep just light enough that I would probably know if my electronics caught on fire.


LOL, could the phone at least have given him advanced warning? It could have said something like "iPhone will burst into flames in 5,4,3,2,1."

 

[Rocko1]

Probrably using cheap Commy designed charger.

 

[rmwebs]

Probrably using cheap Commy designed charger.

"Designed by Apple in California"

Dont start

 

[kdarling]

Incidents like these are partly why it's against FAA rules to pack loose lithium batteries in your checked baggage.

I can think of no more horrible and preventable way to die, than to be in an airplane where the cargo hold is on fire.

 

[Rocko1]

"Designed by Apple in California"

Dont start

Yeah had to change the made with designed.

The Apple cube wall charger clones for $1.50 on ebay do act strange. High pitch squealing, make your iPhone act crazy while charging, etc.

 

[Yvan256]

Product: iPod nano
Serial Number: 0X0000XXXXX
Repair ID: X00000000
Service Requested: November 12, 2011
Status: Product replacement pending

Step 1 - Request. November 23, 2011: Product received
Step 2 - Service. November 23, 2011: Issue identified
Step 3 - Return. November 23, 2011: Product replacement pending

Still waiting.

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I sleep just light enough that I would probably know if my electronics caught on fire.


LOL, could the phone at least have given him advanced warning? It could have said something like "iPhone will burst into flames in 5,4,3,2,1."

(Siri voice) "Oh, dear. I'm on fire. I need to take a bath. Please help."

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what's the fuss
no one reports anything when their non-apple product catches fire
i've heard of friends' nokia's catching fire back in the day, do they post it on the web?

In the same line of thinking, I have to say that my Mac mini has never caught fire.

 

[NY Guitarist]

I'll bet he was the cool guy down at the station after this happened. But I'm not sold on anything but his stupidity.

I didn't see where he had his iPhone "insulated" while charging. Maybe I missed that part?

I don't see the stupidity anywhere. Maybe I'm just stupid or maybe it's you?

I think throwing a burning device out of the window was very smart, showed presence of mind to keep the event under control and prevent it from escalating, and took a bit courage to handle a burning device that was potentially explosive.

 

[Big-TDI-Guy]

These batteries have extremely high energy density, and can be compromised in dozens of different ways. As batteries age, they can become unstable, from temp cycles, charge cycles, moisture exposure, pressure changes, reaction of electrolyte, physical shock, even internal crystallization.

So when you manufacture millions upon millions, each of them being used in unpredictable environments, I'm actually amazed we don't hear about exploding iPhones every day.

 

[Swift]

Wonder if that's in the firefighters training manual??

Quick and effective. I presume if it landed on the grass outside the window, he wouldn't start a grassfire.

 

[ford9125]

There is another thread started yesterday in the iPhone forum where a user shows pictures of an iPhone 4S overheat or short circuit in the phone where the charger cable plugs in.
This incident here is with the iPhone 4, and the other thread is the iPhone 4S, and they don't seem to be caused by the same problem. It's just a coincidence that two fire/overheat threads started at the same time.
Here is the link:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1293515/

 

[powers74]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

"I threw it on the GROOOUND!!!"

 

[Cruzer442]

I am not entirely convinced this is actually true. There have been a suspicious amount of iPhone 4s setting alight lately. Not saying it is definitely untrue, but it seems that one does it, another several do straight afterwards.

Unless of course they are from the same batch, but again we have no evidence of this, and at the rate this is happening, the investigation and recall would be particularly rapid.

What "rate" is that?

 

[jlgolson]

Not trying to say the firefighter is a fool or anything, but shouldn't he be trained to not create a bigger problem by throwing a flaming piece of hardware out the window? Maybe it was raining ...

I don't know about you, but for me

Fire outside the house > fire inside the house.

 

[HyperX13]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Doesn't surprise me. First two iPhone 4s got so hot to touch I could not hold them. On my 3rd. So far so good!

 

[Exotic-Car Man]

A firefighter in the Pennsylvanian town of East Brandywine experienced a close call with his iPhone 4 earlier this month

Nice pun.

 

[Eldiablojoe]

Well, he wouldn't be the first Puddle Monkey who staged a fire to enhance his "hero" status...

http://www.nvfc.org/files/documents/FF_Arson_Report_FINAL.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Leonard_Orr

 

[dontwalkhand]

Eeep, I sleep with the phone IN my bed so I can use an app that measures how I shift when I sleep. The app is called Sleep Cycle...but now I am afraid to use the app.

 

[charlituna]

Does it make me a blind fanboy or just naive to think that this happens to electronics all the time but this case gets reported because it is Apple?

Neither. You are someone that pays attention.

Yes things related to Apple get reported a lot more than things related to other companies. And whenever possible, sites use any tiny connection to Apple in the headlines. Such as the articles about this weekend's explosion in China. Apple is one client of the company and there was no proof that the building in question was ever going to be doing anything related to Apple when it was finally in use. But it was labeled as an "iPad factory"

Apple gets hits, hits make sites money.

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

Does anyone find it odd that the response of a firefighter was to throw it out a window? Sure, we don't much beyond the description of the event, but that made me chuckle.

I agree. A firefighter can't handle a little burning phone and threw it out of a window where it may lead to further problem depending on where it lands and comes into contact with?

 

[charlituna]

I am not entirely convinced this is actually true. There have been a suspicious amount of iPhone 4s setting alight lately.

What 5 reported incidents. Even if we go with only 1 in every 10 such cases makes it to the press that's 50 out of millions of iPhone 4s. Heck 500 out of several million isn't really suspicious at this point since we lack any proof of the full factors around those few cases. Factors such as if a phone had ever been dropped with any level of force and perhaps suffered internal damage that pierced the battery (exposing the internal chemicals to water or oxygen which caused it to ignite). Or perhaps it was jailbroken and the resulting 'adjustment' to the OS screwed with the battery sensor software so it didn't stop charging when the battery was full. And so on.

 

[KiwiAdventure]

iPhone 4 combusts on Australian flight

iPhone 4 combusts on Australian flight


http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/28/iphone-4-self-combusts-on-australian-flight-looks-madder-than-a/