This lovely home outside Denver, Colorado, suddenly went up in flames.
I have a fire.
Okay.
I need a fire department.
Inside your house?
Yes, inside my house.
Hang up the phone and evacuate the residence.
The newly furnished four-bedroom, three-bath home with a nice kitchen was completely destroyed.
And you won't believe what caused the fire, an ordinary 9-volt battery like these, the
kind we all have in our homes.
I never thought in a million years that that could be the cause of the fire.
David Miller made a habit of tossing old batteries in a paper bag in his garage for recycling
later, including the 9 volts he used in all his smoke detectors.
But little did he know there's a small but hidden danger, 9-volt batteries can cause
a fire in a very unexpected way.
It can happen when metals, like steel wool, touch both the positive and negative terminals
at the same time, creating a current.
This can cause sparks and heat up the battery.
Can you apply a 9-volt battery to see what you get?
Just check out these videos online.
9 volts are used as a quick method to start fires outdoors.
Apparently, one of the batteries came into contact with another, and a couple hours later,
I had a fire in my garage.
Fire investigators dug through the rubble in the garage and found the burned out batteries.
You can still see their outline.
You can see the square shape of the case here, and right behind it there's a second battery.
So how dangerous can 9-volt batteries be?
To demonstrate, we had Nassau County New York Fire Marshal Vinnie McManus simulate
a fire that can break out inside anybody's junk drawer.
When the battery is in a drawer and comes in contact with other metal objects, that's
where that spark can occur and the fire can happen.
First, the drawer smokes and then quickly goes up in flames.
You can see a simple fire in a kitchen drawer, how quickly it can extend to involve that
whole cabinet and the upper cabinets and cause amazing devastation very quickly.
There are steps you can take to avoid a fire.
First, always keep the batteries in their packages before use.
Second, don't carry 9-volt batteries in your pocket.
Keys and coins can short the battery.
And third, cover the terminals of all loose batteries with electrical tape.
It's a simple solution.
It only takes a minute and it can potentially save your life.
Just to be clear, it's only 9-volt batteries that have this problem.