SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20200410-64364-2147372985. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Apple Inc. Apple Lightning to USB Cable (2m), Model A1510 (Apple Lightning to USB Cable (2m), Model A1510, white). Incident: My wife uses an Apple charging cable to charge her Apple iPhone. When the charging cable is not in use, she leaves it plugged in to the Apple power block with the unterminated lightning connector under her pillow. On the morning of April 7, she reported to me that her phone wasn't charging well and that it connected and disconnected repeatedly during the night. I examined the charging port of the phone, cleaning out any dust that was present and asked her to try it again in the evening. When we retired to our bed at about 9:30pm, she reached under her pillow and reported that the bedding was hot. When she removed the pillow, we discovered the charging cable had a burned end, and had burned through the pillowcase, into the pillow, through the bed sheet and mattress topper, and had started burning and discoloring the mattress. There was no smoke, but fabrics had burned through. It is my belief that had we not returned when we did, that the mattress would have been penetrated and an open flame and accelerated fire would have occurred, causing extensive damage to my house and threatened the lives of my family and myself. I have photographs and can supply them as needed.