9 Investigates: Local man claims daughter’s phone charger caught fire

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — iPhone chargers -- we all plug them in and then walk away or go to bed, but some are catching fire.

A local father told Channel 9 that one of them burned his daughter’s bed.

>> Action 9 investigates the mistake many are making when charging their phones, Wednesday at 5 p.m. on Channel 9.

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Greg Brown told Action 9′s Jason Stoogenke his daughter’s phone charger caught fire around 5:30 a.m. on a Sunday.

“I smelled plastic in the house so, right away, woke the whole family up and [said], ‘I think we have problems,’” he said.

Brown went to his daughter’s room and said he saw her iPhone charger in the outlet. He showed Action 9 how both the charger and the outlet were burned.

“My wife really got -- really gasped -- when she saw the seriousness of how close that was to having a bigger issue,” Brown said.

After the close call, he had an electrician come to the house.

“When the electrician looked at it, he was pretty adamant that it was within the product itself,” Brown said. “That the plug and the wiring was fine within the house, so it wasn’t a malfunction in that.”

Action 9 emailed iPhone maker, Apple, but did not hear back in time for this article.

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• Make sure your charger is UL listed so it can handle the electricity between your outlet and your phone.
• Make sure your phone has room to breathe while it’s charging (don’t leave it under a pillow, under a pile of clothes, or between sofa cushions).
• Make sure you have working smoking detectors (the Browns said that made all the difference).

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Stoogenke searched the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s database for complaints involving phone charger fires and found nine over the last six months. They involve different companies -- one involved Apple.

Action 9 also found 10 recalls involving phone chargers over the last six years, though none were from this year, and none involved Apple.

Stoogenke also came across other news reports, like in Houston a few years ago, where investigators believe a phone charger burned a mattress inside a home there.

“The potential is there,” said Houston Fire Department’s Moises De La Cruz at the time. “It shouldn’t happen – it’s not likely to happen. But it can’t happen as you see in some of these fires.”

According to a 2017 The Hartford Insurance fire report, charging a phone overnight “on your bed” is as risky as leaving your stove on, or a candle burning unattended. The report said just “charging a phone overnight” like the Browns did is a “moderate” risk.

In all fairness, it’s not just chargers that can be a problem -- any electronic poses some risk.

“Yeah, it’s definitely an awakening,” Brown told Action 9. “There sure could have been much bigger problems 5:30 on a Sunday morning.”

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