SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20211226-79910-2147358304. Severity: Injury, No First Aid or Medical Attention Received. Product: POWEROWL LR41 Coin Cell Battery Pro (40 Pack of LR41 Coin Cell Battery Pro. Individually packaged (in transparent plastic) LR41 batteries in a black cardboard backing and green and white text). Incident: Approximately 20 PowerOwl brand 1.5V LR41 button batteries were put together into a small plastic storage container. Within five minutes, the batteries became so hot that the plastic began to melt, and hand burns were suffered while quickly separating the batteries to avert an imminent fire. There is NO language on the product packaging of the batteries which in any way warns against storing batteries outside of the manufacturer packaging. The only warnings are to not open the batteries or throw in a fire/keep in dry location. Only by luck did we avoid a house fire starting in a closet within a mere several minutes of putting some loose batteries in a drawer. As the manufacturer packaging is incredibly space-inefficient, it would be expected that other people will attempt to store the batteries together in a storage container of some sort. This is incredibly hazardous and there needs to be warnings against this practice on the packaging.