NEWPORT BEACH – An Arizona couple helplessly watched Sunday as their cash, credit cards and drivers licenses went up in smoke during a bizarre electric bike fire in Newport Beach.

“We couldn’t believe it,” Lisa Vondran of Phoenix said Monday. “It sounded like fireworks going off.”

Lisa Vondran and her husband, Steve Vondran, an attorney, purchased two classic beach cruisers for about $2,800 each a week ago from the Electric Bike Company, which is based in Newport Beach.

On Sunday morning, the couple rode the bikes to breakfast and then walked them over to the beach for a leisurely afternoon on the shore.

Around 4:30 p.m., the Vondrans parked the bikes at the end of an access ramp on 18th Street and strolled toward the beach.

“We put the kickstands down and started to walk away, when my husband’s bike went up in flames,” Lisa Vondran said. “We backed away. Stuff from the electric battery was shooting everywhere. We were in shock.”

The blaze melted and charred Steve Vondran’s bike and damaged the tires and handlebars on his wife’s beach cruiser.

A cell phone and all of the couple’s cash, credit cards and drivers licenses kept in a wallet in the basket of Steve Vondran’s bike were also destroyed.

“We literally didn’t have any money to buy any water,” Lisa Vondran said, adding she had to reach out to friends and family for money and a passport.

“We were both mesmerized,” Steve Vondran said. “I was wanting to put out the fire but I didn’t have anything to use.”

The Vondrans were not injured and Newport Beach firefighters used dry chemicals to extinguish the blaze, said Mike Halphide, lifeguard battalion chief for the Newport Beach Fire Department.

The fire was likely caused by an isolated assembly problem with the bike’s battery management system, a computer chip that regulates voltage, Bob Anderson, sales manager for the Electric Bike Company said Tuesday.

“It was a one-in-a-million thing,” Anderson said. “It could have happened to anybody, but it happened to us.”

As a result of the incident, the president of Electric Bike Company expedited a trip Monday to China to meet with the battery’s manufacturer, he added.

The Electric Bike Company has also replaced the Vondrans’ bikes.

“We have new bikes and rode them Monday,” said Lisa Vondran, adding she is extremely pleased by the company’s response. “The fire was just one of those fluke things.”

Contact the writer: 714-796-7767 sschwebke@scng.com Twitter:@thechalkoutline