Charge your phone overnight? Here’s why Montreal fire officials say to stop

Montreal fire officials are warning against charging your phone overnight after thousands of lithium ion batteries set a shipping container on fire.

Many Canadians likely plug in their phone before going to bed to charge it during a period of the day when they don’t need it, but Montreal fire officials are urging people not to do so due to a potential fire risk.

The warning from the Montreal fire department comes after it battled a major fire involving about 15,000 kg of lithium batteries inside a shipping container on Monday at the Port of Montreal.

“Due to the amount of energy that these batteries store, it took us quite a while to extinguish the fire,” Matthew Griffith, the fire department’s section chief, said this week.

Lithium batteries can be found in any number of electronic devices, from toys and power tools to cellphones, and while generally considered safe to use, the federal government warns they still have the same safety risks as other kinds of batteries including overheating, fires and explosions, which in some cases can occur from overcharging.

“Any lithium ion battery that may overcharge due to damage to one of the cells or a manufacturing defect, once this chain reaction we call a thermal runaway … starts to happen inside the battery itself, the reaction is quite violent and very rapid,” Griffith told Global News on Friday.

According to UL Research Institutes, an independent safety science organization, a thermal runaway occurs when the lithium-ion cell in a battery enters an uncontrollable, self-heating state that in turn can cause the ejection of gas, extremely high temperatures, smoke and fire.

Such a fast process is why Griffith stresses phone charging should take place when you’re awake so if something did occur, you can escape fast and added having working smoke alarms in your home are of the utmost importance.

“You only have a very, very short time, we’re talking within a minute of getting out of the room or the house.”