No one was harmed but many shoppers scrambled after popular gadget caught on fire at the Outlet Collection mall – ‘and not just a little fire’ a shopper said

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Instead of running to store shelves to snap up one of the most-hyped Christmas gifts of the year, shoppers were sent running at a Washington mall when a hoverboard exploded.

No one was harmed in the Tuesday morning incident, which sent shoppers scrambling away from a kiosk selling hoverboards, the self-balancing scooters that incidentally do not actually lift off the ground.

Hoverboards are one of the most-hyped gadgets of the year, but they are wreaking havoc across the United States.

KEEMSTAR (@KEEMSTARx) Hoverboard starts on fire at mall. Are they safe? #DramaAlert pic.twitter.com/exGdtZBvA9

A woman in Louisiana blamed the product for a fire that destroyed her home. A man in Alabama said his hoverboard caught fire while he was riding it in his neighborhood. And the incident in Washington has brought hoverboard explosions to the northwest.

Kelli Steiner recorded a video of the incident at the Outlet Collection mall in Auburn, Washington, near Seattle.

“For no reason, it just exploded,” Steiner told KIRO 7. “And not just a little fire, exploded. Like combusted, the whole thing.”

The explosion was dealt with quickly and that it is “business as usual” at the mall, said spokesman Michael Goodman, for WP Glimcher, the company that owns the mall.

“From all we know, and I wasn’t there, a unit malfunctioned,” he said.

Goodman said the hoverboard came from a kiosk, not a store in the mall.

Last month, the New York City police department said that hoverboards are now banned in the city. They are also illegal in Britain, the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed in October. Thousands of hoverboards were impounded at UK ports last week, after testing revealed they were at risk of exploding or bursting into flames.

But they were made legal in California this year, with a law that goes into effect on 1 January 2016. They can still be banned from private property in the state, as rapper Wiz Khalifa learned over the summer.

Khalifa was arrested in August by US customs officials at Los Angeles international airport when he refused to get off of his hoverboard.

He saw the arrest as a speed bump in a greater social movement. After the incident, he tweeted: “I stand for our generation and our generation is gonna be riding hover boards”.