iPhone battery fire forces brief evacuation of Zurich Apple store

An Apple store in Zurich, Switzerland was temporarily evacuated on Tuesday after an iPhone's battery at the service desk overheated in the middle of a removal procedure, emitting smoke and burning the worker who was doing the work.

Besides the technician that burned his hand, in all seven people received medical help, Reuters reported. Local police noted that about 50 workers and customers had to leave the shop.

"The staff responded well and correctly," police added in a statement. "It sprinkled quartz sand over the overheated battery so that the smoke could be contained and sucked out after switching on the ventilation."

Forensic specialists were brought in to determine the cause of the fire. It's most likely the battery was damaged either by the owner prior to the service procedure or during the removal procedure, igniting the electrolyte used in lithium-ion batteries from every manufacturer.

Apple recently admitted that it throttles the performance of iPhones with chemically depleted or damaged batteries to protect against sudden shutdowns that can damage electronics. Many people are likely taking advantage of $29 out-of-warranty battery replacements offered to appease the public.

16 Comments

linkman 1041 comments · 11 Years

About 6 years ago

It's surprising that the situation got that far out of control. That battery must have went up in a quick blaze.

macxpress 5913 comments · 16 Years

linkman said:

It's surprising that the situation got that far out of control. That battery must have went up in a quick blaze.

Thats how batteries go up once they get oxygen into them. Just as Samsung. I believe that are part of the cause of the exploding Samsung batteries in the Note.

I'm sure this entire article will be spun into Apple now has iPhones with exploding batteries. Bring on ambulance chasers!

sflocal 6138 comments · 16 Years

Zero detail, so let's just publish some attention-grabbing headlines to imply that the iPhone has a faulty batter, i.e. APPL is doomed.

It happened during removal of the battery? Did the technician slip and possibly short out the battery somehow? Did the tech inadvertently damage/puncture/force-remove the battery causing it to pop?

Have no idea, so what so-called "journalists" do nowadays, lets just be the first to publish the headlines, and fix it later. We need the web clicks.

/end-rant

lkrupp 10521 comments · 19 Years

What does the last paragraph have to do with this story?

jdb8167 626 comments · 16 Years

lkrupp said:

What does the last paragraph have to do with this story?

It’s likely the battery was being replaced under the new program.

Also interestingly, one of the reasons that battery life can be shortened is damage to the battery. So it may not have been a defective battery or a careless technician but instead a battery with physical damage.