This week is National Fire Prevention Week with a specific theme in mind.

According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), the “Charge Into Fire Safety: Lithium-Ion Batteries in Your Home” stresses the importance that this technology plays in today’s society and how to prevent potential fires from happening. Jefferson Fire Chief Jack Williams says lots of smart-technology items such as cell phones, televisions, watches and tablets, contain lithium-ion batteries and sometimes those tend to get overheated, which can cause problems.

“Like your cell phone, keep it out of the sun because once the lithium batteries in your cell phones get hot, it will start a fire. And like an electric car fire, we can’t extinguish it, you have to submerge it in water to put it out, and we don’t have that ability. So we’d have to sit or quarantine off two or three blocks for six to nine hours.”  

The NFPA recommends purchasing items that use lithium-ion batteries that have a stamp on the packaging from a nationally recognized testing lab, and only use the charging cord that the product came with. Finally, NFPA advises not to throw away a lithium battery into the garbage or a recycling bin, because it could catch other items on fire. Instead, the NFPA suggests taking it to a battery-safe recycling center.