The Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety has warned workers of the dangers of carrying around electronic cigarette (vape) material on their persons.
The warning came after the Department received a report of an incident on a mine site where an electronic cigarette battery spontaneously ignited in a worker’s pocket while he was travelling in a utility with two other workers.
The statements received with the report described a combustion event not unlike fireworks going off and flying around the inside of the vehicle while the workers were travelling. The worker received severe burns to his leg (pictured).
The Department said the report was consistent with those of other spontaneous combustion events involving e-cigarette devices in the United States and the United Kingdom, some of which had resulted in fatalities.
“Also in January, an explosion in a parked car in a shopping centre carpark set off a destructive fire that damaged seven cars in the vicinity,” the Department said.
“Police confirmed that an e-cigarette device was responsible for the explosion and resultant fire,” it said.
“A recent study led by George Mason University in the US estimated there were more than 2,000 visits to US emergency rooms from 2015 to 2017 for e-cigarette burns (thermal and chemical) and explosion-related injuries.”
It said the vast majority of those injured were men who had e-cigarette batteries in their pockets when the batteries exploded.
Some had keys or coins in their pockets which became a dangerous mix of metal and lithium-ion batteries.
“An overheated battery in a pocket can easily set clothes on fire, resulting in severe burns all over the body,” the Department said.
