Phone Charger Shorted Causing Fire Damage

2/21/2018 (Permalink)

This is a phone charger that was plugged in and shorted out causing fire damage.

In a continuing education class presented by Todd Davis, Davis Agency Insurance, for SERVPRO of Black Hawk County, Todd pointed out that one fast growing fire hazard was phone chargers left plugged in for extended time periods. Look around, do you have one plugged in now and possibly without a phone attached?

To prove the point, I am sharing a story from SERVPRO of Dubuque, Iowa. They were recently called to clean up and rebuild a local home that sustained significant fire, soot and smoke damage due to an electrical fire.

As usual they were prevented from beginning their work until after the Cause and Origin Specialist had reviewed the scene and determined the cause of the fire.

It ended up in this case that a cell phone charger was left plugged in after the phone was removed after charging overnight.  The charger shorted out and started a fire resulting in $50,000 plus in damage.

It is commonly known that charging a phone while on top of a flammable surface such as in bed or on a sofa is a fire hazard, but what about once the phone is removed from the charger?

Most people are unaware that once the phone or even the charging cord are disconnected there is still power being drawn by the "wall plug".

As we find that we use more and more mobile electronics in our daily lives, most of us have a handful of different chargers for our cell phones, tablets and other accessories.  It is common to leave wall plugs or car chargers plugged in and simply disconnect our devices.  Unfortunately doing so is not only a fire hazard but is becoming one of the most frequent causes of electrical fires in homes.

Two possible preventative measures are either simply unplugging all chargers when not currently in use or to plug all chargers into a quality GFI power strip and turn it off when not utilizing the chargers.

I hope this information will be helpful and can prevent a dangerous and costly fire in your home or business.  Should you have a fire or water damage loss, please remember SERVPRO.  We can make it "Like it never even happened."

Thank you to SERVPRO of Dubuque for sharing the picture and story.