How lithium-ion batteries and e-scooters pose new safety risks to buildings
Posted on: 9 April, 2025
The batteries that are powering more and more of our everyday items and belongings pose a significant risk to fire safety. Here’s how.
Lithium-ion (often referred to as Li-ion) batteries have become a fixture of our daily lives. From our cars (electric vehicles accounted for almost 20% of all new car sales in 2024) to our mobile phones, tablets and even e-cigarettes, this technology is abundant in our homes, workplaces and urban environments.
However, the emergence of this technology into the mainstream has brought with it a raft of safety concerns for health and safety professionals in the built environment.
Here’s everything you need to know about this emerging safety risk:
What are lithium-ion batteries?
Lithium-ion batteries (often referred to as Li-ion) are the most common and widely used type of battery available today. They’re lighter, more compact and have greater longevity than most types of batteries. They can also be recharged and reused, and can hold their charge for longer periods.
Along with consumer electronics and electric transportation, lithium batteries are used for energy storage (e.g. solar power and backup power systems), drones, power tools and remote-controlled devices.
Why are lithium-ion batteries a fire risk?
Lithium-ion batteries store a significant amount of energy when charged, and contain highly flammable electrolytes to facilitate the flow of ions. If a battery is damaged, defective, hot or degraded, it builds up heat and pressure, causing it to spontaneously ignite – a phenomenon referred to as “thermal runaway”.
After thermal runaway, batteries can produce smoke, ignite or even explode, making them extremely dangerous. They can reach temperatures of up to 1000 degrees Celsius and release toxic, dangerous gases – both of which can put lives at risk and cause serious injury.
What causes lithium-ion battery fires?
Thermal runaway and resulting fires or explosions can be the result of:
- Extremes in temperature: Both intense heat and extreme cold can cause thermal runaway
- Overcharging: Charging batteries for longer than needed produces excess energy and heat
- Overheating: Thermal runaway is accelerated by high temperatures that can result from overuse
- Malfunction and short circuiting: Manufacturing defects or short circuiting can produce excess heat
- Crushing and penetration: Physical damage can cause battery cells to discharge energy and heat up
- Moisture: Excess water can lead to short circuiting and react with chemicals within the battery, leading to thermal runaway
What happens when a lithium-ion battery ignites?
While the relative risk of a battery-powered device catching fire or exploding is low, such is their ubiquity that the number of fires is increasing rapidly. Between, 2022 and 2023 there was a 46% rise in lithium-ion battery fires in the UK.
What makes lithium battery fires so dangerous is both the ferocity of their nature and the difficulty in putting them out. Thermal runaway can lead them to burn for hours and even days, and putting them out requires specialised equipment and techniques.
There have been notable incidents that have resulted in injuries and even deaths in recent years. In October 2024, a couple in London were almost killed by a catastrophic failure of a lithium battery in their apartment. In 2023, Mizanur Rahman, 41, and Bobby Lee, 74, were both killed in separate incidents resulting from modified e-bikes.
Overall, 10 deaths and 190 injuries have been linked to lithium-ion battery fires in the UK since 2020.
Incidents like these led the London Fire Brigade (LFB) to state that e-bikes and e-scooters were the fastest-growing fire risk in the capital in 2024.
This isn’t an issue isolated to the UK, either. In recent months reports of rising incidents have also emerged in New Zealand and Australia.
Lithium fires, cladding and high-risk buildings
The rise of lithium-ion batteries comes against the backdrop of another safety crisis in the built environment – the cladding crisis.
According to various estimates, thousands (if not millions) of buildings in the UK have fire safety issues resulting from poor quality cladding – the same risks that led to the devastating Grenfell Tower Fire of 2017. Eight years on from the incident, thousands of these buildings have issues that remain unaddressed – including many deemed to be ‘high risk’.
The issue of cladding has only been exacerbated by the rising number of lithium battery fires. These concerns are understandable – there could be thousands of battery-powered devices stored in locations full of flammable materials, presenting an enormous risk to hundreds of people.
Lithium batteries in the workplace
With lithium-powered devices so commonplace, it’s not just homes that built environment professionals need to consider – it’s workplaces, too.
As Phil Pinnington noted in an article for the British Safety Council, “The sheer speed with which a battery fire can grow in intensity creates utter devastation to people and property. Although most instances have, so far, been in people’s homes, the challenges these batteries present in the workplace must be considered and responded to by employers as a matter of priority.”
With more lithium-powered devices entering the workplace through e-scooters and other equipment, employers and site managers need to factor this into their health and safety strategy.
How can we address the risk?
Health and safety professionals, facilities management teams and responsible persons can take the following actions to address the risks of lithium battery fires:
1. Conduct a risk assessment
Conducting a risk assessment is essential to give you the best chance of mitigating the threat of a battery fire. Understanding the hazards, assessing potential risks and implementing controls can go a long way to keeping people safe and reducing the potential damage in the event of a fire.
It’s also vital to ensure the batteries and electrified equipment you purchase or your employees use are produced by reputable manufacturers.
2. Provide proper storage
e-scooters and e-bikes are often the cause of battery fires, so providing dedicated storage areas for battery-powered equipment that are limited in size is an effective way to contain the risk.
Batteries that aren’t in use should also be stored safely in dry, cool and well-ventilated areas free from humidity.
3. Spread awareness
Awareness – not just among health and safety professionals but also employees – is another effective way of minimising the potential risk of a battery fire. Educating teams on the nature of lithium-ion battery fires (and the risks of poor safety practices or modified battery-powered equipment) can help mitigate the danger.
4. Perform regular inspections
Regularly assess the conditions of batteries (along with the storage areas they’re contained in) to highlight any potential issues before they’re able to escalate.
5. Encourage safe charging practices
If your employees regularly make use of battery-powered equipment, encourage the following charging practices:
- Avoid overcharging: The excess heat resulting from overcharging batteries can cause thermal runaway.
- Use the correct charger: Incorrect chargers can lead to overheating and damage your batteries.
- Wear personal protective equipment: When handling batteries, wear goggles, gloves and a face shield.
6. Dispose of batteries responsibly
The risk of battery failure, explosions and fire doesn’t end once they’re disposed of or depleted. Waste fires resulting from batteries being thrown away with flammable waste are responsible for over 200 fires a year in the UK.
A European study predicts that 78 million lithium-ion batteries could be discarded every day across the world by 2025, so providing proper disposal measures like fire-resistant containers and responsible recycling is crucial.
Final thoughts
The popularity of electric cars, smartphones and other battery-powered technologies means it’s unlikely that the risks lithium-ion presents are going away anytime soon. To overcome these dangers and keep your employees safe, it’s crucial that you implement fire safety practices and contingency measures and regularly review these as the risk evolves.
It’s also hoped that the introduction of measures like the UK government’s ‘Buy Safe. Be Safe’ campaign, which is intended to raise awareness of rogue online sellers of e-bikes and e-scooters, can combat the issue. However, awareness of this issue remains worryingly low, and more action undoubtedly needs to be taken.
