Resident says his daughter alerted him to a fire in the bedroom caused by hoverboard on charge, but it was too late to stop it taking hold

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Just 10 minutes after a hoverboard was plugged in to charge, a Melbourne family was fleeing a fiery blaze that had windows exploding.



Ash Ibraheim said he tried to put out the hoverboard fire after his daughter alerted him, but it burned too quickly.

His daughter had plugged in the Christmas present only about 10 minutes before the blaze started in the Strathmore home on Monday night, he said.

“My daughter came running into the lounge room and said there was a fire in the bedroom,” Ibraheim said on Tuesday. “I ran there to try to put it out. It was too late, the bed had caught fire.

“In the panic of it all, I slipped, fell on my back. And then by the time I sort of came to stand up there was an explosion and I just sort of scrambled and ran out.”

All five family members and their pets were safely evacuated but the rear of the brick home was severely damaged, fire authorities said. The rest of the building suffered water and smoke damage and the home will have to be bulldozed.



Although the family has lost its house they say they are lucky to have made it out alive.



“The rest doesn’t really matter – it’s all material,” Ibraheim said.

Authorities have said the charger does not comply with safety standards.

They are trying to identify the brand and supplier of the unmarked product, which was bought from a Sydney-based distributor.

A fire investigator, Rod East, said the hoverboard’s battery had exploded.

“The insides have been spewed out,” he said. “The actual device would have caught fire and it’s caught on to the bed and spread through the rest of the house.”





Amazon pulls hoverboards over safety fears Read more

East said he would not allow children to charge any device, let alone hoverboards.

“Me personally, I probably wouldn’t let the kids have them unless they’re being supervised,” he said. “Overseas, they’ve been a real big problem. They’ve had a number of fires; they’ve had people injured from those fires. This is our first one here.”

Fire crews retrieved the burnt device and a new one that was undamaged and will hand them over to Energy Safe Victoria (ESV) to examine. The regulator will track down the product’s distributor in NSW.

An ESV spokesman, Neil Fraser, said five varieties of hoverboard had been recalled across Australia, because they had non-compliant chargers.

A recall notice would be issued immediately if the model in the Melbourne home was found to have an inherent problem.

“Exercise caution. Don’t leave it unattended while you’re charging it until we know what make and model this one was,” Fraser said.



Acting commander Phil Smith of the Metropolitan fire brigade said the incident served as a warning about the dangers of leaving charging items unattended, the ABC reported.



“It overheated for some reason and caught fire and no one saw it till it was too late,” he said. “In this case the family were fortunate to be able to get out of the house.”

Increasing concern over the fire risks from some brands of hoverboards led Amazon to withdraw them from sale last month.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission warned consumers before Christmas of the dangers of buying brands that did not comply with local standards.

Last week the actor Russell Crowe became embroiled in an angry spat with Virgin Australia, after the airline refused to allow him and his children on board a plane with the gadgets. Hoverboards are banned from many airlines due to concerns over the combustability of lithium ion batteries.