This mother was left shocked after her 11-year-old son’s mobile phone suddenly caught fire in a movie theatre.
No one was injured, but he fears it was much worse.
On Monday, Madara Mejoule was waiting for her son and her friend in front of the theater. Wondering why it took so long, she went in to look for it. He was surprised by what he saw.
“The entire movie theater was filled with smoke and you might just smell poisonous gas,” Mejoule recalled.
Her son ran up to her and told her that her phone had caught fire.
At first, she was skeptical.
“I didn’t think a phone could explode spontaneously,” Mejoule admitted.
She said she dropped her phone and slid between the theater seats.
“When he went to retrieve it, he pressed the seat, which jammed the phone and pressed it, at which point the lithium battery started to smoke,” he explained.
Mobile phone trapped in a cinema seat. (Courtesy of Madara Mejoule)
Cambridge firefighters said the flames were contained at the headquarters and building.
“The cause is that a mobile phone that was handed over got stuck in the seat, causing damage to the phone and battery,” said Eric Yates, Cambridge’s fire prevention officer. “The result was that the battery was thermally filled and turned on. “
Thermal runaway occurs when a lithium-ion battery enters a state of uncontrollable self-heating. As a result, the phone could reach extremely high temperatures, expel fuel or shrapnel, smoke, or catch fire.
Fire departments across the province have reported an increase in the number of lithium-ion battery fires. These batteries are only found in phones, but also in electric bicycles and other electronic devices.
“The challenge with a lithium-ion fireplace is that it is a chemical reaction. It doesn’t rely on oxygen like a classic fireplace does,” explained Prevention Officer Cory Armstrong-Smith of the Norfolk County Fire Department.
Firefighters say it’s vital to follow the manufacturer’s instructions and use the right chargers and devices regularly.
“The batteries themselves are sensitive because of the way they are built. It’s very easy to damage a battery: bending it, dropping it, breaking it and exposing it to maximum heat will cause it to fail,” Armstrong-Smith added.
Mejoule said her son has a Google Pixel phone of his own.
She said she contacted the company, but says she upgrades the phone without an expensive deposit.
“They don’t care that this happened to my son, that it could put him in danger, and they don’t care about replacing him,” Mejoule said, fighting back tears. “This just tells me I’m not a valued customer. ” “.
CTV News also reached out to Google, but got a backlash before the deadline.
Mejoule said he will limit himself to Google phones for now, since he is under contract, but will be more cautious with cell phone batteries.
Cineplex said it closed the movie theater where the fire occurred on Monday, but reopened the next day as usual.
Cambridge Fire shared more battery protection tips:
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