Closed door saves house when battery overheats

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

A lesson learnt at primary school was remembered when it mattered most for a woman at a house in Elgin on Thursday when a lithium ion battery overheated and set fire to a bedroom in the home.

Fire and Emergency NZ sent crews to the house in Chalmers Road at around 4pm.

“The woman was preparing dinner when she smelt smoke and went to investigate,” a senior firefighter said.

“It was coming from one of her children’s bedrooms, where the lithium ion battery for a radio- controlled car was being charged.

“She approached the closed door of the bedroom, touched it and felt it was hot.

“At the same time she could hear popping noises coming from inside the room,” he said.

The woman knew her children were not in the room at the time.

“She kept the door closed, called 111 and got her family safely out of the house.”

When the first fire crew arrived the fire was still contained to the bedroom and was extinguished quickly.

“The woman told us she remembered a lesson she had learnt from firemen when she was at primary school about keeping doors closed when there’s a fire.

“Doing that did a huge job in containing the fire in this case,” the senior firefighter said.

“The bedroom was badly damaged by fire and smoke, and is unliveable.

“But there was no fire or even any smoke damage anywhere else in the house. The rest of the home is fine.

“The family were very lucky though that this incident didn’t happen in the middle of the night; the outcome could have been tragic,” he said.

“The other major lesson to come out of this incident is to ensure you

have working smoke alarms in the house, particularly near the sleeping areas.”