We were sitting on the deck, having dinner, when we noticed an unpleasant burning smell. Not the usual smell of barbecuing meat (which can be pretty unpleasant to a bunch of vegetarians – seriously, it makes me think of burning flesh) but something more chemical or plasticky. When we also noticed a smoky haze in the distance, Eric went off to investigate and potentially call emergency services. That turned out not to be necessary, because they were already on their way.

The cause was an electric bike battery that had caught fire while charging, two houses away from ours. Bike batteries can apparently be really dangerous and have caused major fires in Stockholm recent years. I remember websites advising people to not charge mobile phones overnight for safety reasons, but I haven’t seen that advice for a few years now. I guess phone battery technology is more mature. But for bike batteries, that advice is still applicable – charge during the day, and not indoors. Bike batteries get more bumps and hits (which is really bad for them) and obviously they’re also quite a bit larger than phone or laptop batteries. Plenty more firepower.

The internet has now also taught me how dangerous large lithium ion batteries are to transport, and how many shipping companies don’t even want to touch them, and how they require special certification.

In this case the incident was judged serious enough to warrant two fire engines and a police unit to manage the site, and the police decided to cordon off the streets around the house in question. Luckily nobody had been injured. The situation was quietly resolved later without any further excitement.

Last time we had a fire near us was seven years ago.