SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20240320-B6211-2147340259. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Ryobi 0p40602vnm (Ryobi 40V Volt Lithium-ion 6.0 Ah High Capacity Battery, Model 0P40602VNM, Black, 6inL x 3inW x 3inH, used for lawn equipment (mower, string trimmer)). Incident: On a Thursday afternoon, we suddenly noticed smoke in our kitchen. We were able to identify quickly that the smoke was coming from one of our cabinets. I opened the cabinet and found smoke forcefully flowing out of one of our Ryobi 40V batteries for our lawn mower and string trimmer. I was able to remove the battery to the yard, where the battery began to actually flame and burn. We called the fire department, who advised us to just let it burn out in a fire pit until it exhausted all of the lithium in the battery. We suffered some minor smoke damage in our cabinet, as well as some melting of the casing of the other two Ryobi 40V batteries that were in the cabinet. The batteries were all purchased new with new equipment in May of 2023, and used within manufacturer guidelines. The batteries were kept on the charger only when charging, and removed once they were fully charged. We always stored them off the charger in a kitchen cabinet that is dry and maintained at 68-74 degrees year round. The batteries had stored for the winter and had not been disturbed since Oct/Nov of 2023, so there was no apparent event that would cause the battery to suddenly combust. We were lucky (a) to have been home to notice the smoke and remove the burning battery before it caused a house fire, and (b) to have enough time to research how to extinguish the battery and NOT use a standard fire extinguisher or water on it, which actually makes battery fires worse. If either of these things had gone differently, we could have had a lot more damage or injuries.