PORTLAND, Ore. — On September 12, two fires broke out in Southwest and Southeast Portland, both caused by rechargeable lithium-ion batteries.
Officials said eleven people were displaced; three adults from the Southwest location, and eight from the Southeast location with a few of them being teenagers.
A fire just before midnight was caused by a lithium-ion battery in an electric scooter, according to Joshawa Heagle, who was displaced.
Portland Fire & Rescue said they also responded to a similar situation last month, as well as four months ago, due to batteries inside these scooters.
They said these batteries can go into thermal runaway, meaning the battery cell begin to uncontrollably self-heat, leading to very high temperatures, and eventually, smoke and fire.
Lithium-ion batteries can be found in electronics, including phones, laptops, cars and much more.
Heagle, his girlfriend of over a decade, his two teenagers and his brother in law's family who lived in the unit beside them was also damaged, causing them all to be displaced after the fire.
“My son, he was the first one to start trying to fight the fire. He’s only 13-years-old, and he was in a panic, and he went straight to the coffee pot because he didn’t know what else to grab," said Heagle.
Heagle was asleep when the fire broke out, but was awoken by his brother-in-law who was only staying the night, alerting him of the fire.
"That scooter was what was on blaze, and there was two propane tanks behind it, and that’s why I jumped so quick to start putting it out," said Heagle. "The two propane tanks had propane in them, and they could have combusted at any time."
He said he worked to put out the fire with a hose, but by then, the fire had spread up to the attic.
Heagle added that the scooter was outside when it caught fire and was not charging, or up against a wall.
“Pretty much all my son's clothes got destroyed. My daughter got a little bit of hers salvaged and stuff, but not much," he said.
He said his girlfriend also lost everything, and he's been wearing the same clothes since the fire because he has nothing else.
Heagle said he was already financially struggling, and they had just bought their kids a lot of school supplies to kick off the school year.
Now, it's all gone.
“We got to figure it out from square one again," he said.
"Everything in here, anything that got wet is pretty much garbage, like we can’t salvage it unless it’s a hard surface, then we got to wash it. Everything upstairs, nothing survives," he continued.
Now, he and his family are switching off staying with his father and sister.
His sister Chrystal Forrest created a GoFundMe for Heagle, to help him and his family get back on their feet.
While the goal is to raise $20,000, they said any little bit helps, as well as donations of food, clothe, and bedding.
“The biggest reason I did it was because seeing my niece and my nephew's faces, if you could only imagine their faces, and just feeling hopeless. You can't do nothing. You can't give them back everything that they're needing to get by," said Forrest.
Heagle said if anyone is looking to donate, they can contact him through his Facebook or through GoFundMe.
Forrest said their other brother also experienced an apartment fire a few years ago, also caused by a battery in an electric scooter. Nobody was physically injured in this fire.
Heagle said while the building's owners are not fining them and also returned their security deposit and this month's rent, they also gave them a ten day notice to vacate.