A restful night took a turn for the worst and played out a family’s worst nightmare. An Ohio family was sleeping completely unaware of the flames igniting in their kitchen. Fortunately, there weren’t any significant damages to the family members or property. A closer examination of the security cameras revealed one of their iPhones bursting into flames while everyone was resting upstairs.
Jennifer Leisgang and her family shared their story on Facebook as a cautionary tale for those charging older iPhones. The caption read: “Please share! We were extremely lucky to avoid a house fire. Our kids were charging our old iPhone 4 with the apple charger last night and it exploded and caught on fire in our kitchen while we were sleeping.
“Luckily we had just cleaned off the counter yesterday as it usually has lots of school books and papers in that area. There were small pieces of the phone and black soot all over the counter this morning. I’ve posted the video below and hope sharing this can possibly help prevent a fire in someone else’s house.”
There was a small fire igniting from the device and it spread to the countertop before it fizzled down. The family didn’t realize until the next morning when Leisgang and her husband, Brian, were met with a burnt countertop and a broken phone. “It had a silicone case on it that cracked off and the phone split open. And there was black soot all over the countertop and on the chairs and on the floor,” Leisgang said.
Luckily, no kid’s homework ignited the flames even more. “I realized how lucky we were that we didn’t have anything on the countertop and that it just went out on its own,” Leisgang added.
Leisgang did file a claim with Apple but the response was not straightforward. “Their verbal response, and I am paraphrasing because I did not write it all down, was that my device was vintage and they don’t expect their clients to be using a phone that old,” Leisgang said. “They did not really have an answer.”
Parents are guilty of giving their young children an older phone to browse but it might not be the best call.