Just before midnight on a Friday in January, a fire tore through a three-story house in East Elmhurst, Queens, injuring 10 people inside and killing a 63-year-old man who was trapped on the second floor. Five days later, on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, another fire broke out in the basement of a house in Forest Hills, Queens, where an unauthorized day care center was housed. Eighteen children were injured, one seriously.
The cause of both fires was rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, which power the e-bikes and e-scooters that have become ubiquitous on city streets, according to the New York Fire Department.
Lithium batteries are no joke.
