OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) – An Oakland family is without a home after a lithium battery caught fire in their garage on Sunday. In the wake of this ordeal, the family wants to raise awareness about signs of a faulty battery.
Suzy Feder and Clark Boyd are grateful they were able to make it out of their home on East 21st Street with their baby.
The couple said loud pops and smoke started coming from their garage so Boyd went to check it out. He says he quickly saw it was his lithium battery that caught fire.
“I unlocked the door and it didn’t open, so I had to shove it open. That’s when a rush of black smoke came in,” he said.
Feder quickly called 911, but she says she was put on hold by dispatchers.
“For over six minutes. I ended up having to hang up so I could call other people. Other neighbors were around. They were on hold with 911 as well,” she remembers.
Feder grabbed their 18-month-old baby and dog. Her husband stayed behind to fight the fire in the garage.
Eventually, firefighters arrived at the home and put out the flames. A car inside the garage and the building got heavily damaged. No one got hurt, but the family and their two neighbors are now without a home.
“It’s overwhelming to even process. Hard to even figure out what we need to do,” Boyd said.
Boyd says he had a lot of flammable items in the garage, so this could have been a lot worse. Reflecting on the chaos of Sunday, Boyd wants to warn others about faulty lithium batteries.
“If you have a problem charging a battery don’t use it at all. Return it. If they have a problem with it and you’re not getting your money back, then take that loss. Taking that loss on a $100 battery, it’ll save you in the long run from blowing up something or possibly someone getting hurt,” he said.
The family did complain to the company Sunpadow USA about the battery having issues before it combusted, but customer service did not help them. KRON4 reached out to the China-based company but did not hear back by Wednesday night.
While the couple is troubled they were put on hold by 9-1-1, they understand Oakland dispatch is understaffed. KRON4 reached out to the dispatcher’s union, and they said being understaffed does directly affect call wait times.
A dispatcher did say that progress is being made in hiring new dispatchers, it just takes a long time to see change because it takes up to a year to train this kind of worker.
