A rescue dog in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, saw playtime go up in smoke when the device he was playing with burst into flames. The five-year-old pooch, Colton, chewed the lithium-ion battery-powered device while home alone, and quickly ran away when the fire started. Damaged lithium-ion batteries are more likely to overheat and catch fire. The home video of the fire, which caused no major damage aside from the rug where it started, was shared by Colton’s owner, David Sasser, a member of Chapel Hill Fire Rescue. “Thankfully, we have a monitored alarm system, so once Colton started the fire, our local department was called to respond,” Sasser told WXII, adding that Colton’s battery privileges have been revoked. Sasser said that once he received an alert from his security system that a fire had started, he was able to respond quickly because he and his family were nearby. He warned that the fire department is concerned about how lithium-ion batteries are disposed of, and that disposing of these batteries improperly can ”lead to some very bad circumstances." Colton was not harmed during the fire.
Read it at WXII 12
