A 34-year-old man died and two firefighters were injured after an e-bike battery caught fire inside his Bronx apartment.
It was the city’s fifth fatality this year caused by lithium-ion batteries sparking a blaze, the FDNY said.
The fire inside the third-floor apartment on Beaumont Ave. near Grote St. in Belmont erupted at about 11:50 p.m. Thursday.
Responding firefighters found the victim, believed to be a tenant of the apartment, unconscious and rushed him to St. Barnabas Hospital, where he later died.
Another building tenant suffered serious injuries and was also taken to St. Barnabas Hospital. Two responding firefighters suffered minor injuries and were treated at the hospital, an FDNY spokesman said.
The fire was put out within 40 minutes. More than 60 firefighters and city emergency medical technicians were called to handle the flames.
Firefighters found an e-bike inside the apartment where the blaze broke out. FDNY officials have determined that the bike’s lithium-ion battery caused the fire.
A HAZMAT team was dispatched to retrieve the lithium-ion battery and prevent it from reigniting, officials said.
Since 2022, lithium-ion batteries have become the leading cause of fire deaths in New York City, although the number of deaths have dropped dramatically this year, FDNY officials said. At this time last year 12 people across the city had died in e-bike fires.
Most recently, 69-year-old Georgiy Kizyun died when he was trapped in his Brighton Beach, Brooklyn apartment on Oct. 16 by a fire sparked by an exploding e-bike battery.
FDNY Chief Fire Marshal Dan Flynn said then that Kizyun was unable to escape after a lithium ion battery stored in his apartment blew up.
“The device was blocking the egress of the person that succumbed to their injuries,” Flynn told reporters outside the Brooklyn building. “Do not put these devices between you and the front door. You have to have a plan. Make sure you can get out.”