Tragedies like this week’s e-bike repair shop fire highlight the hidden dangers that personal vehicles powered by lithium-ion batteries pose to urban environments.
It was just after midnight on Tuesday, June 20, when a Lower East Side deli worker saw smoke pouring from the shuttered HQ E-Bike Repair shop at 80 Madison Street. The worker called 911, and the fire department arrived within four minutes. Firefighters began pulling residents, some unconscious, from the smoke-filled apartment building above the shop. But they couldn’t stop the intense fire from burning through to the apartments above and into the building next door. It even blasted through the shop’s metal security gate. Four people died in the blaze, and two others were critically injured.
