2005Batteries/Power forum
Camera truck fire caused by lithium-ion battery incident during unattended charging
21 years old. Gear and prices may have changed since.
What the thread found
- A camera truck fire occurred when purse-style lithium-ion batteries for an A-camera were left charging unattended over a weekend in an enclosed truck locker
- Lithium-ion batteries require significant ventilation during charging because they release gases during the charging process that can become explosive at high concentrations
- The fire started when lithium-ion battery cells overheated, possibly due to manufacturing quality issues, with hot molten cell material landing on egg-crate foam rubber that acted as an accelerant
- Batteries from established manufacturers like Anton Bauer and PAG are considered safer than custom-made battery packs of uncertain construction quality
- Steadicam-related batteries and chargers were not responsible for the fire; only camera system batteries were involved
Depends on
- Investigation was not completed at time of reporting
- Exact cause of battery failure was not definitively determined
- The fire story may conflate multiple incidents or have unreliable details since initial accounts were secondhand rumors
- Custom-made battery pack quality is speculative as a root cause